During group medical examination, the nude men are herded through a string of doctor’s offices c. 1960

Ernest Cole made this photograph, sometime before 1990, of a group medical examination using black and white film. What gets me about photography is how it freezes a moment, but also how a photographer chooses that moment, it's a process of selection. Cole's choices of light and shadow create a stark contrast. The textures of the skin, the smooth walls, and the rough floor are all there in the image, but it’s the bodies that create the scene. Look at the way their arms are raised, a gesture of surrender or offering. It’s repeated, almost mechanically, down the line. Each body is an individual, yet they are presented as a collective. The light catches the muscles, but it’s the uniformity that hits you. The way the figures blend together reminds me a bit of some of Gerhard Richter's paintings, where the image feels both precise and blurred at the same time. It’s unsettling. And that is what’s interesting about art, that it can hold so many meanings at once.