A summer afternoon on a terrace in Paris by Geert Van Baelen

It is one of those typical Parisian summer days when the city seems to sigh with contentment. The light is warm but soft, as if the sun knows exactly how much it can shine without anyone having to drag their chair into the shade. Life flows quietly by on the terraces of the many cafés. Glasses clink against tables, chairs scrape across the tiles and conversations mingle with the murmur of the street. No one is in a hurry — even time seems to have ordered an espresso here and settled down for a long sit. At the front, three figures are caught up in their own little world. A sip of wine, an absent gaze, a book that is just a little more interesting than everything around it. Behind them, the café's glass reflects the city: passers-by, trees, facades bathed in golden light. Inside and outside merge, just like memories do — a little sharp, a little vague, but full of atmosphere.

This work did not begin with paint, but with a moment. I took the photo myself one afternoon when everything was just right: the light, the people, the accidental composition that you can never direct. I then digitally edited the image and transformed it layer by layer into a painterly whole. Using digital brushes, texture layers and colour corrections, I tried to let go of the raw, photographic detail and capture the impression of the moment. Brushstrokes that are not perfect, edges that dissolve a little, colours that are just warmer than in reality — all conscious choices to make the feeling more important than the exact reality. The result balances between photograph and painting, between now and memory. An ode to a simple summer afternoon, on which nothing special happened — and precisely because of that, everything.