Tak met bloemen c. 1900 - 1930

Richard Tepe took this photograph of flowers sometime in his life using a photographic process which involved coating a surface with light-sensitive chemicals. Now, what grabs me is the simplicity, you know? Just this branch, these blooms, smack-dab in the center. Tepe was playing with light and shadow, but it's also about focus, literally. What does it mean to center something? It’s like he’s saying, “Look, world, here’s this thing I saw.” I wonder what Tepe was thinking? Was he just digging the shapes, the way the petals reached out? I like to think he was trying to freeze a moment, to keep it from fading. It's like a little poem, a simple statement, but it gets under your skin. It reminds me of other artists working with similar subjects, each one seeing something new, finding their own way to say, "This is here, this is beautiful, this is now."