Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948

This photograph was taken by Gordon Parks in Harlem, New York, but when exactly, we don’t know. Here is a picture, captured in black and white, of a fallen man. He is lying prone, his nice striped suit marked with dark splotches. What kind of artistic decision leads someone to take a picture like this? What does it mean to make a picture of something so terrible? It must have been hard for Parks, who lived between 1912 and 2006, to be an artist in the middle of the twentieth century. It was a time of great change, and great unrest. It was before the world was connected like it is now. I wonder if he felt alone sometimes. Like a painter, Parks is using the camera to explore the world around him. He must have known that he was participating in the creation of history, and in the collective memory of the world. His pictures continue to speak to us today.