Leadville, Colorado 1973 - 1978

Richard Gordon made this photograph, Leadville, Colorado, at an undetermined date, using gelatin silver print. I’m interested in the process of making a picture, whether it’s a painting or a photograph; here, the tonal range is so important, the way light and shadow play across the frame, it’s almost painterly. You can see Gordon's attentiveness to texture, particularly in the foreground, the cracked concrete, with its crazy paving look, that extends as a kind of material carpet from the foreground to the middle ground. What a great contrast that makes with the smoothness of the building in the background! The eye traces a line from the rough to the smooth, taking in the figures of the two women, both with cameras trained on something beyond the frame. This makes me think of other photographers of the American scene, like Lee Friedlander, who was also interested in the poetics of the everyday. Art isn't about answers, it's about inviting questions and conversations.