Washington, D.C. 1979

John Gossage made this photograph in Washington D.C. Sometime after 1946. Looking at this image, it feels like a quiet observation, a moment captured from the corner of an eye. The sepia tones give it a nostalgic feel, like a memory fading at the edges. I wonder what caught Gossage’s attention here. Maybe it was the way the foliage blurs the line between the natural and the man-made, or the contrast between the sharp angles of the fence and the organic shapes of the leaves? There’s a feeling of stillness, like the world is holding its breath. I am reminded of other photographers, like Stephen Shore, who found beauty in the everyday and unremarkable. Like a painter with a canvas, Gossage uses his camera to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, inviting us to pause and reconsider what we see. Photography, like painting, becomes a way of looking, questioning, and ultimately, feeling our way through the world.