Untitled (dad kissing little girl, seated on armchair, Houston, Texas) 1929

This photograph of a dad kissing a little girl in Houston, Texas, was made by Paul Gittings using an unspecified process that yields an inverted image. The grayscale gives it an ethereal quality, doesn't it? A kind of 'x-ray vision' into a moment of pure love. The way the light and dark are reversed affects how we read the surface. Look at the dad's face; the soft modeling around his cheek becomes almost sculptural in its starkness. The textures are heightened in this light, creating a tactile sense of the scene. The sweetness is palpable, and the emotional impact is heightened by the unusual perspective. It reminds me a little bit of some of those family portraits by Alice Neel, not in style, but in that intimate, psychological space they manage to capture. As with Neel's work, the lack of artifice or ceremony gives it a power that is both immediate and deeply moving.