Paucartambo, Peru 1974

Ed Grazda made this photograph, Paucartambo, Peru, using gelatin silver. It's kind of like a painting in its approach to light and shadow. You know, it's a process, you take a shot, but then you're in the darkroom, dodging and burning, pushing and pulling. The textures here are something else; the rough plaster wall, the carved wooden frame, and then the scratches on the glass itself. Look closely at the lower right pane, where someone has etched into the surface, layering marks, like palimpsests. The lines are so delicate, like a whisper of something once present. It makes me think about photography as a record of time and the accumulation of experiences, much like the layers in painting. Grazda reminds me a little bit of someone like Robert Frank, someone who’s really seeing America, or in this case, Peru, in a way that's both tender and critical. With a picture like this there's no one way to understand it, and that's the beauty of it.