Brian Jackson, "Lil Collins," Transylvania, Louisiana 1999

Deborah Luster created this hauntingly beautiful portrait of Brian Jackson using an antique photographic process in Transylvania, Louisiana. It’s hard not to be moved by the sepia tones and the image’s stillness, which feels both intimate and distant, like a memory fading around the edges. The light catches the details—the texture of his denim jeans, the worn laces of his boots, the sheen of his skin. I can imagine Luster carefully arranging the composition, thinking about how the light would play across his form. The imperfections and the marks on the plate become part of the story. These imperfections are reminders of the human hand and the passage of time. It's like a painting from another era, reminding us that all art is a conversation across time, with each artist building upon the work of those who came before.