Franse ambassade in Caïro, gezien vanuit de tuin before 1905

Here is the Maison Bonfils' photograph of the French Embassy in Cairo seen from the garden. Imagine the photographer, standing, waiting for the light, trying to work out what to include and what to exclude; foreground, background. The embassy building seems solid, framed by the surrounding foliage. Is that a figure in the arched doorway? Or is it my imagination, as forms become other things? Photographs are tricky because we think they are real, that they 'capture' something, but what they really do is flatten experience into an image. I guess that’s what painting does too, turns experience into pigment, canvas and form. Photography and painting are just different sides of the same coin. As an artist, you are always in conversation with each other.