Detroit 1943

This is Harry Callahan’s photographic print, Detroit, made sometime in the mid-twentieth century. The real subject here is time, and how a photograph can collapse multiple moments into a single frame. I find myself mesmerized by the layering, the way Callahan captures both the solid reality of parked cars and the spectral image of buildings across the street. It's like Detroit itself is a ghost, imprinted on the present. The monochrome palette only adds to this feeling, reducing everything to shades of memory. Look at how the details of the cars – those gleaming headlights, the curve of a fender – are repeated, slightly out of sync, creating a visual echo. It reminds me a bit of Gerhard Richter’s blurred paintings, which also play with the tension between clarity and abstraction. Both artists seem to be asking: how do we really see? And can a work of art ever truly capture a single, definitive truth?