Chicago 1950

This photograph, Chicago, was made by Harry Callahan, and when I look at it I feel like I'm spying on a secret. Callahan’s composition frames the subject so intimately. It's just the woman's mouth, chin, and the dark fabric of what I think is her coat, pressed up against her throat. There's a kind of graphic quality to the high contrast in the black and white image, but there's also something so physical about the breath coming from her mouth. I wonder what Callahan was thinking when he made the image, so close up, and how the person felt being photographed like that. It makes me think about other images by artists like Georgia O’Keefe, and how the cropping of an image can create a certain kind of feeling in the viewer. It all seems somehow connected, you know? Artists, we're always looking at each other's work and getting ideas.