Untitled (studio portrait of girl in patterned shirt with gun in holster) 1954

This small, undated studio portrait by Paul Gittings at Harvard Art Museums presents a girl in a patterned shirt, holding a gun in a holster. It's giving me some weird Wild West vibes, with a dash of old-school studio photography. I'm curious about Gittings and what he was thinking when he made this. The backdrop is swirling, like the ocean and the girl has this quiet intensity. I'm drawn to the contrasts: innocence and bravado, domesticity and adventure, and the still pose with the suggestion of action. There's something powerful about how Gittings frames her. It makes me think about the way we construct identity, using props and settings to create a story. Photography, like painting, is a form of world-making, and artists are constantly borrowing, stealing, and riffing off each other. This work leaves space for ambiguity and allows for multiple meanings.