Strand bij Mount Lavinia (Colombo) met palmen, kind en wrakhout c. 1900 - 1920

This photograph of Mount Lavinia in Colombo, with its palms, child, and driftwood, feels so immediate, doesn't it? I imagine the photographer, maybe slightly sweaty in the tropical heat, adjusting their lens to capture the scene, the light just so. The palms lean in a balletic pose, their fronds like a dancer's fingers reaching skyward. See the driftwood scattered on the beach? Like bones, picked clean by the ocean. And that tiny figure of a child, almost lost in the vastness, staring out to sea... Photography is so interesting, isn't it? In some ways, I can so closely relate to photography. My own paintings are less concerned with verisimilitude, or making art that looks real, but I appreciate how a photograph like this can capture a mood, a feeling, with a specific attention to light. It makes you wonder about the world through someone else's eyes. They're all in conversation, aren't they, the artist, the viewer, and time itself.