Toren van de Grote Kerk te Breda 1890 - 1920

This photogravure shows the tower of the Grote Kerk in Breda, and was made by an anonymous photographer. It's pale and subdued, but full of texture. I can imagine the photographer trying to capture this huge building. They’re probably thinking about depth, perspective, how to make a flat thing feel like a real space. The image is so still, but everything in life is moving and shifting around it. I think about the actual labor of making a photograph, the framing of what to include and exclude, and how that choice is like a brushstroke. It’s a lot of work to make something look so quiet. Painters and photographers are always having a conversation. Painters have to make marks to create the illusion, whereas here the challenge is in the selection of what to show. The image has this feeling of being aged and faded, but it’s also a document of a specific moment. It makes you wonder about all the things you can’t see.