Washington (southwest section), D.C. Negro children in the front door of their home after 1942

Gordon Parks took this photograph of Negro children in Washington D.C. with his camera, sometime in the mid twentieth century, and what strikes me about it, is the way he plays with tone. Parks uses light and shadow not just to depict the scene, but to communicate the emotional tenor of the moment, a beautiful rendering in monochrome. See how the light glances off the faces of the children, each one with a slightly different expression? The youngest, at the front, is more in shadow, looking out into the light, while those further back seem to be in a liminal space. Look at the doorframe too, the way it creates a barrier, or a threshold. The image evokes the photography of Roy DeCarava, another great American photographer, who saw the poetry in the everyday. Parks’ photograph is a reminder that art is about seeing, feeling, and thinking.