Italiaanse Bersaglieri poserend voor hun barakken in de Dolomieten 1916

Henri de Rothschild made this photograph of Italian soldiers, probably sometime around the First World War. What I love is the way that it presents a group of people who are posing for a picture, but with little imperfections of life poking through. The sepia tones give it this historical quality, but then there's the guy in the middle with his mouth open, as if he's just been caught mid-sentence, or maybe mid-yawn. And look at the hats, some with feathers, others without, each slightly different. It feels like a real moment, not a staged one, even if it is. It reminds me of some of the early photographers who were trying to capture real life, like Eugène Atget, who documented the streets of Paris. There's a similar sense of just finding something, rather than creating it. Art is like that, sometimes, a matter of finding something that was already there, waiting to be seen.