Woningen voor het Javaanse personeel 1926

This black and white photograph, "Woningen voor het Javaanse personeel," of dwellings in what looks like Java, raises so many questions. The photographer is anonymous, which makes me think about authorship and intention. What was their life like? What compelled them to frame these simple buildings like this? I imagine the photographer, sweating in the tropical heat, carefully composing the shot, maybe thinking about light and shadow, or maybe about the people who lived in these houses. Were they trying to capture a sense of place, or to document a social reality? The evenness of the light flattens the forms and the repetitiveness of the houses is like a visual rhythm. You know, the photograph seems to be saying something about the ordinary, the everyday lives of people in a faraway place, but, of course, as a viewer, I can only project my own questions onto the image, filling in the blanks with my own imagination.