Henry Lotz at the Midway City Dairy Association Cooperative, near Santa Ana, California  1937

This is Dorothea Lange’s gelatin silver print of Henry Lotz at the Midway City Dairy Association Cooperative, near Santa Ana, California. I'm really struck by the composition here. The way Henry is looking up, hand shielding his eyes, mouth open, it’s like he's trying to make sense of something just out of view. I can imagine Lange, camera in hand, trying to capture something essential about this moment, about this person. What was she thinking when she made this? It’s such a human thing to look up, to search, to try and figure things out. There is a whole world implied beyond the frame. It makes me wonder what Henry is looking at, what he sees, what he feels. Lange's work has been a real touchstone for so many artists - she really understood how to capture the dignity and resilience of everyday people. I think this photograph is really about the act of looking, the act of trying to understand. It's a conversation, you know? Between the photographer, the subject, and us, the viewers.