Luftwaffe militair 1941 - 1942

This small, anonymous photograph from the Rijksmuseum archives presents a Luftwaffe soldier. It’s like a muted symphony of greys, isn't it? The tones blend in a way that softens the stark reality of its subject. I am immediately drawn to the slight blur of the flowering bush to the right of the figure, the out-of-focus blossoms suggesting an in-between state, something not quite present but not entirely absent either. What I mean is, the photograph captures a moment—a real person, a real place—but the out-of-focus elements add an ethereal quality, like a memory fading at the edges. It reminds me of Gerhard Richter's blurry photographs that he used as source material for paintings: how something gained a special, almost transcendental quality through its manipulation and removal from reality. It shows how art is never just about what’s depicted. It’s about how it makes us feel, and how we make sense of it all.