Untitled (photograph of "Blue Danube": two women in gowns kneeling by man in tuxedo) c. 1940

This untitled photograph by Paul Gittings presents "Blue Danube: two women in gowns kneeling by man in tuxedo". The high-key lighting throws everything into an almost ethereal glow. It reminds me of the way light interacts with paint when you're building up layers, each one influencing the one beneath. There's a curious tension in the photograph. The figures are staged, posed, yet the soft focus gives them a fleeting quality. This tension resonates with the work of someone like John Singer Sargent. Like Sargent, Gittings finds a balance between precision and ambiguity, inviting us to linger in the in-between spaces. The work is a process of bringing something into focus, only to let it dissolve again. It's a reminder that art is a conversation, an exchange of ideas across time, where meaning is never fixed.