Untitled (three photographs: woman tossing wedding bouquet; man at open car door; two men with clothing boxes on bed) after 1940

This is a photographic contact sheet of three images by Paul Gittings. In stark black and white, it feels like a storyboard for a film noir. I see a tension between the spontaneity of a wedding bouquet toss, captured in the top image, and the staged or constructed nature of the other two. Look at the bottom image: a man sits in a car, the door swung open. Is he escaping, or waiting? The high contrast emphasizes textures and details, almost like charcoal on paper. The images are stark. In the final scene, two men pack boxes on a bed, suspended between flight and domesticity. What kind of story are these images telling? What do the images imply about what comes before and after the moment they capture? Gittings’ photographs remind me of the work of photographers like Garry Winogrand, who documented fleeting moments of social life with a similar sense of ambiguity and raw energy. It’s a study in the poetry of the in-between, capturing life's unplanned moments.