Untitled (seven boys in suits holding books and staffs) c. 1950

Paul Gittings made this photographic negative, titled "Untitled (seven boys in suits holding books and staffs)". The ghostly palette, a range of grayscale tones, lends a dreamlike quality to the image, making one wonder what the story is here. There is a softness to the marks that is only possible with the chemical process of photography and the darkroom. It is a reminder that artmaking is a process of building an image out of almost nothing. Consider the way Gittings captures the fabric of the boys' suits, or the weight of those books and staffs. It feels like he’s as interested in surface texture as he is in the group portrait. Each figure has their own unique character. The expressions are ambiguous, but they are each rendered in the subtlest ways. Gittings' photography reminds me of the dreamscapes in a film by Maya Deren, or even the early works of Gerhard Richter, where the photograph becomes a source of inspiration to be mined. The power of art resides in this ambiguity, this invitation to see and think in new ways.