Jenar Jury, St. Gabriel, Louisiana 15 - 2000

Deborah Luster made ‘Jenar Jury, St. Gabriel, Louisiana’ using a photographic technique called the tintype process. That antiquated method is so visible here, isn’t it? It’s all about surface and light. The way the image is caught in the sheen of the metal. Look at the top right hand corner. You can see the way that the chemical treatment has been applied to the plate, leaving these amber stains around the edges of the frame. The subject’s hands are a focal point, clasped loosely together, they almost seem to float in the inky space, like islands in a dark sea. Look at the lines of the palms, the light catching on the knuckles. The detail is incredible. It’s hard not to think about the photographs of August Sander, and his impulse to document every strata of German society, the good and the bad, through a similarly forensic recording of the human face and form. Luster’s photographs are so much more than records though. There’s a haunting quality here. A sense of an individual spirit. It’s what makes them so compelling.