Der Fleck auf dem Spiegel, den der Atemhauch schafft (Breath Mark on the Mirror) 1977

Dieter Appelt made this haunting photograph, Der Fleck auf dem Spiegel, den der Atemhauch schafft, by, well, breathing on a mirror, then photographing the result. The beauty here is in the blur, the way the breath obscures the face, making it both present and absent. Look at the grainy texture, the almost tangible quality of the breath as it fogs the glass. It's a reminder that even the clearest reflections are fleeting, altered by the slightest interruption. It makes you think about the relationship between the self and its image, how we construct our identities through performance and reflection. The fogged area could be a metaphor for memory, emotion, or even mortality itself, and it's the process of exhaling, of breathing life into the piece, that brings all those associations to the surface. Appelt, like Gerhard Richter, explores photography's capacity for abstraction, pushing its boundaries to capture something beyond the surface.