Versailles, Coin de Parc 1903

Eugène Atget made this photograph, Versailles, Coin de Parc, without a date, using, probably, a large format camera and a glass plate negative. Isn’t it funny how the very formal gardens melt into a fuzzy background, while the statues have a stark and immediate presence? I can imagine Atget, with his big heavy camera, trying to find the best angle to capture the light, making sure the exposure was just right. I bet he spent a while deciding whether to focus on the statues in the foreground or the landscape behind. The tone is sepia, like a memory or a dream, a muted palette, which gives a timeless quality, right? The composition is bisected by that line of water, so the foreground is all classical form and the background just dissolves into nature. Photographers, like painters, are always in conversation with each other and with the world around them. They pick up on things, respond, and transform. And we, the viewers, get to join in that conversation, bringing our own experiences to the mix. Art is never really finished, it's always becoming.