Gedeelte van de Grote of Sint-Stephanuskerk te Hasselt 1904

This is a very ethereal, sepia toned photo of a part of Sint-Stephanuskerk in Hasselt, taken at some point by an anonymous artist. Imagine the artist, whoever they were, standing there with their camera, trying to capture the grandness of the church with the limited technology of the time. The soft, muted tones give the image a dreamlike quality. You can almost feel the stillness of the moment, the quiet reverence for the building. There's a person standing by a tree, seemingly frozen in time. Were they part of the composition, or just someone passing by? It makes you wonder about their story. The artist might have been thinking about the past, and how the present becomes the past, like this building has. You can see it in the way that the photo makes it feel old even if it wasn't at the time it was taken. It’s all about capturing a fleeting moment in time, preserving it in shades of brown, for us to ponder years later.