Vrachtwagen met tulpenbollen 1946 - 1947

This photograph, "Vrachtwagen met tulpenbollen," or "Truck with Tulip Bulbs," was made by the United States Information Service. It's documentation, in a way, of a post-war reality in the Netherlands. The image, in grayscale, is all about texture: the rough brick street, the woven crates of bulbs, the heavy canvas covering. Look at the tires of the truck, so thick and sturdy, they ground the scene, the very opposite of the delicate tulips they carry. It’s a functional aesthetic, you know? Like, everything here has a job to do. There’s this tension between the industrial and the organic, between the practical and the beautiful. It reminds me of some of the early social realist photographers, like Walker Evans, who found beauty in the everyday. Except here, it's not poverty they're documenting, but resilience, and the promise of rebirth in those little brown bulbs.