Fontein op het Bankaplein in Den Haag c. 1901s

This small photograph captures the Bankaplein fountain in Den Haag, shot by David Vermeulen with a camera that lets in so little light that everything washes into sepia. What I love about old photos is their capacity for dreaminess, and how what's missing becomes as important as what's there, like a half-remembered memory. The photograph is also pasted into a book at an angle, which gives this very classical and still subject matter a feeling of falling, or of something being slightly off-kilter. Look at the delicate, almost ghostly figures around the base of the fountain. They're blurred, capturing their movement, their presence just a fleeting impression. There’s something about this image that reminds me of Eugène Atget’s documentary photography of Paris; a record of something about to be lost, or disappear, or transform into something new. It feels like a conversation across time and place.