Portret van Alvin Langdon Coburn en zijn moeder Fannie 1910

Clarence Hudson White took this photograph of Alvin Langdon Coburn and his mother, Fannie, using a platinum print. White was a key figure in the Photo-Secession movement, and that’s clear in the way he teases out soft, hazy tonalities from his materials. The image has a quiet, painterly feel, like a Whistler nocturne. Fannie’s face is the focal point, but it’s her hat that really grabs you, all those ruffled, cloud-like forms. Look at the way the light falls on it, how the petals seem to almost dissolve into the background, they remind me of the way petals lose their form as they decay. And then there’s Alvin, lurking behind her, clutching what looks like a portfolio. It's not a sharp image by any means, but it gives a palpable sense of presence. You can see why White was drawn to pictorialism, it’s all about atmosphere and emotion, capturing a mood rather than a literal depiction. You could say that the work of someone like Julia Margaret Cameron is an influence here. It shows the beauty in photographic images that look beyond the literal.