Untitled (portrait of child with blond hair holding stuffed animal under right arm) after 1940

This photographic portrait of a child with blond hair, holding a stuffed animal, was made by Paul Gittings. It's that dreamy, silvery quality, isn't it? The way the tones seem to flow into each other. I think about the dark room, the way the image would appear slowly, like magic. I wonder how Gittings made the surface so smooth, so soft. If you look closely at the child's hair, you can almost feel the fluffiness, the texture. And that gentle smile - it's like a secret, isn't it? It makes me think of Gertrude Käsebier, another photographer who captured that sense of childlike wonder and innocence in her portraits. But where Käsebier was all about the light, here we have a kind of velvety darkeness. Isn't it amazing how a photograph can capture a moment, a feeling, and hold it still for us to see again and again? It's like a conversation across time.