Untitled (woman standing with young son and daughter in doorway, looking out screen door) after 1940

Paul Gittings made this untitled photograph of a woman and her children standing in a doorway, but we don’t know exactly when. The world is built in black and white here, with Gittings painting with light in shades of grey. The deepest darks surround the subjects, pushing them towards us in the frame, like a stage set. The surface is smooth and glossy, the image crisp, the details clear. See how the light catches the children's dresses, rendering them as soft shapes, while the dark lines define the bars of the screen door, holding the light in check. For me, this is a piece about the threshold, the space between inside and out, the known and the unknown, control and freedom. It reminds me of Dorothea Lange's photographs of families during the Depression era, but here there is a stillness, a quiet contemplation that leaves room for both hope and uncertainty. Ultimately, art is not about answers, but about asking better questions.