Propagandaleider Ernst Voorhoeve 1941 - 1942

This small photograph pictures Propagandaleider Ernst Voorhoeve, and was made by an anonymous photographer, at an unknown date. I'm thinking about the image and how it comes into being. It's not a painting but a photograph, with all those shades of grey in that dark hall. It's like a snapshot, an image shifting and emerging through time and light. What was it like to be that photographer, pointing and clicking at the scene? I can almost see the grains of the photograph, the texture on the surface. Look at the man in the image, pointing with that emphatic gesture! What could it be communicating, what was the intention behind it? It's that gesture that really jumps out. Maybe the photographer was trying to capture something, but it feels ambiguous. It has such an uncomfortable feeling about it. In the end, photography, like all art, becomes a conversation across time. It's about feeling and exchange and reminds us that how we see things changes, especially through other people. It's that ambiguity, that uncertainty, which makes art so interesting, allowing for endless interpretations.