Karl Struss 1914

This image is a photograph by Paul L. Anderson, and it portrays Karl Struss. Looking at this photograph, I imagine Anderson, alone with Struss, coaxing him to hold still just so. You can see how the light delicately illuminates Struss’s face and the patterned curtain behind him, while the rest falls into shadow. I wonder about the process of staging the photo - how long it took to get the lighting just right. Struss holds a photograph in his right hand. I am compelled by how this simple gesture communicates feeling, intention, and meaning. Perhaps, like Anderson, he is trying to capture a moment in time, to preserve it. As a painter, I am interested in how we artists are in an ongoing conversation with each other across time and medium. Each painting is a new response, a creative reflection on what came before. Like Anderson, artists embrace ambiguity, allowing multiple interpretations.