Washington, D.C. #11 1975

This is Anthony Hernandez’s photograph, Washington, D.C. #11. He captured it with a camera. What’s so amazing about photographs is how they isolate a moment in time. I think of the photographer, Hernandez, out on the streets of D.C., seeing something that called to him. He brings the camera up to his eye and then—click—he steals the scene. Look at the woman with her hand over her eyes! Is she waiting for someone? Or is it just that the sun’s too bright? She stands on the sidewalk next to what looks like a produce stand. The vegetables make a beautiful pattern, somehow. But then, everything in the photograph makes a pattern, a system of black and white, light and shadow, that creates a certain mood, like film noir. It’s like Hernandez is having a conversation with all the street photographers who came before him: Garry Winogrand, Helen Levitt, and Lisette Model, to name a few. I hope that his work will encourage other artists to get out there and keep up the conversation.