Image Transcription:
[ A young, dark-skinned woman softly kisses a dark-skinned infant in her arms, the infant gazes upwards, transfixed by the sunlight weakly spilling into bedroom where they sit. The child is wrapped in pale grey clothes and a white swaddling blanket and their face is inscrutable as they stare ope-mouthed into the soft that that just barely illuminates the room that is fitted with heavy green curtains and a tidy bed with white and off-white flower patterned linens. The woman herself has a facial expression of dignified serenity and she raises the child in her arms to her lips, softly kissing the baby on their cheek. She wears a loosely knitted dark red knitted beanie over her natural hair, a and a russet-colored men’s shirt over a batik printed indigo-and-white traditional dress. The presence of belongings stuffed into plastic bags tucked behind the bed suggests that this may be a refugee or evacuation situation instead of the serene and comfortable bedroom it initially appeared to be. ]
Wait are we sure this isn’t on purpose renaissance?
If someone snaps a photo of a subject in good light, because the photographer instinctively knows what will make a good photo, but the subject is just doing their normal everyday things? We still consider it accidental.
Remember that we’re not looking for photos that were accidentally taken, like the camera was yeeted through the air and this was the last photo it captured before it shattered. That’s not what Accidental means in our context.
It means a situation that was already happening, but the moment that a photographer caught just happened to resemble a painting from the 14th-16th centuries.
We draw the line at people purposely recreating Renaissance vibes with costumes, or people doing a pose that is heavily associated with certain Renaissance paintings, or elaborate lighting rigs used in professional photo studios made specifically to replicate the lighting in Rembrandt’s work (for example).
If the photographer was trying to make the mother and child recreate an exact Renaissance pose, they’re doing a terrible job at it, but the overall effect is Renaissance-like.