White Camaro, Palmer, Massachusetts 1993

This gelatin silver print, "White Camaro, Palmer, Massachusetts," was made by James Welling. What immediately grabs me is the way the black and white flattens everything, making it feel both real and a little like a dream. Look at the surfaces, the texture of the house siding, and the way the light hits the car. It's not about being slick; it's about seeing the thingness of things, the what-it-is-ness. My eye keeps going to the window covered in plastic sheeting. It looks like a painting by Gerhard Richter, the way it obscures and reveals at the same time. This photograph is doing something similar – asking us to consider what we see and how we see it. Welling often plays with abstraction and representation, and this piece has both. It reminds me of some of the New Topographics photographers, who were interested in banal landscapes. But Welling has something more, a sensitivity to light and form that elevates the ordinary.