Autohandel van Dirk van der Mark aan de Keizersgracht 635 te Amsterdam c. 1914 - 1924

This black and white photograph by Fotobureau Holland captures Dirk van der Mark's car dealership on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam. There’s a certain straightforwardness to the image, almost like a quick sketch, that draws me in. The reflection of the buildings and cars in the canal is where things get interesting. It’s not a perfect mirror image, but a sort of watery abstraction, a blur of light and dark that disrupts the linear precision of the architecture. It makes me think about how we construct our understanding of reality through fragments and reflections. Look at how the bare trees are cropped, and the shadow they create on the cobblestone street and how it gives this seemingly straightforward photograph a sense of depth and complexity. It's a scene that could inspire someone like Bernd and Hilla Becher, who documented industrial structures with a similar deadpan aesthetic, or even a painter like Gerhard Richter, who explores the ambiguity of photographic representation. The meaning is not fixed, but is always shifting, always open to interpretation.