Gezicht op een poort te Marrakech Possibly 1927

This is a photograph of a gate in Marrakech, taken by A.G.A. van Eelde. The warm sepia tones speak to a specific time in photographic history, when the medium was less industrialized. Consider that the tonality results from a careful alchemical process, involving the interaction of light, chemicals, and paper. This print would have been made in a darkroom, a space for experimentation, but also demanding a certain level of technical mastery. The artist’s eye is evident, but so is their knowledge of materials. Indeed, photography has always involved a tension between artistic vision, scientific understanding, and standardized industrial processes. It sits at the intersection of all these things. Thinking about it this way helps us to understand that a photograph is never just a picture; it is the record of a particular relationship between art, science and the world.