Photograph 1910

This is a photograph by Thomas Eakins, and when I look at it, I can see the process of image-making almost as much as the image itself. The grayscale tones feel full of subtle variation, like watercolor washes gently layered. There's something really beautiful in the way the light filters through the leaves, almost dissolving the figure into the background. Check out how the details of the dress seem to fade, becoming one with the hazy atmosphere. This soft focus, combined with the limited tonal range, almost makes it look like an early modernist painting. Eakins clearly understood how to use the camera to capture something beyond mere representation. There is a painterly quality at work. It reminds me a bit of Whistler's muted palettes. I think that's why I love it – it embraces ambiguity and evokes a mood, rather than giving us all the answers.