Portret van Aagje Nieuwmeijer 1914

This small photograph captures Aagje Nieuwmeijer. The American Automatic Fotografie studio took it; can you imagine? It’s like a faded dream, a palette of subdued grays and browns. I imagine the photographer arranging Aagje, maybe she was nervous. She holds her little bag. I wonder about the place, time, or feeling, what the photographer was aiming for. Maybe they wanted to reveal something, or maybe it was just about documenting a face in a moment. The softness of the image and the composition remind me a bit of some early photography and how painters co-opted the medium. This is a dance between reality and representation. It makes me think about how we look, how we present ourselves. It makes me want to slow down, to really see.