Kade 1940 - 1943

This small photograph, Kade, is from an album in the Rijksmuseum, and was made using gelatin silver printing. The image shows buildings, boats, and street surfaces with a limited grayscale, like a memory struggling to come into focus. Look how the grainy texture almost dissolves the forms. The tones gently blur together, giving everything a muted, soft quality. The surface is very matte, with no shine to distract. The photographer isn't trying to wow us. This feels more like a quiet meditation on a place. The light seems to flatten the space, so it’s like the buildings and boats are pressed up against each other. Consider the surface of the street, a maze of tiny marks. Each one suggests a stone, a moment, a step taken. All those tiny, almost invisible marks make up this dense plane. It’s almost abstract, like a field of possibilities. It reminds me of Atget’s documentary photographs, which similarly capture the poetry of everyday urban life. It’s a reminder that even the most ordinary scene can become something magical through the artist's eye.