Vrouw met een hooivork vol stro op haar schouder before 1904

This silver gelatin print of a woman with a haystack and pitchfork was made by Raymond de Smet. The sepia tone feels so classic, doesn’t it? Like something unearthed from a forgotten family album. You can almost smell the hay. The surface of the print has this incredible depth; it's smooth yet textured, creating an almost tactile experience. Look at the way her face is lit, soft and dreamy, and the contrast with the rough, almost chaotic texture of the hay is really interesting. It’s so clearly posed and yet the composition is so affecting. The print shows the image on the right page of an open book, and the left page is filled with text in German and French, so in this case, the book itself becomes an art object, a vessel for the photograph. This image reminds me of Hannah Höch, whose photomontages, while wilder, share the same spirit of repurposing images and complicating a simple narrative. It is an image that leaves space for multiple interpretations.