Light and Shadow on a Street with Cobblestones, Emil Otto Hoppé, 1921
gelatin silver print, h 245mm × w 187mm
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© The E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection
This street with cobblestones is literally a non-subject: no story is being told, no event takes place, and not a person is in sight. Hoppé must have been struck by the play of light and shadow, for that is the actual subject of this photograph. With this image of 1921 Hoppé stood on the threshold of Modernism. A more traditional ‘element’ here is the atmospheric blurring of the fore- and background.