Untitled (Bus, New York City) c. 1970s

Anthony Barboza made this image on paper in New York City. The tones are soft and yielding, moving from light to dark in gradual blurs, creating a sense of movement. Looking at the child’s face framed by the window, you can almost feel the bus vibrating, each part of the scene pulled along a slightly different vector. What I love about photography, especially one like this, is that the image is caught between intention and accident. The artist is present, yet he’s capturing something fleeting. Note the hat, like an apparition in the window, and the scratched-in words above it, ghostly yet assertive. It brings to mind other street photographers like Garry Winogrand, who found a way to make the everyday feel both urgent and unresolved. This piece reminds us that art is really just a way of seeing, a way of asking questions rather than answering them.