Untitled (portrait of little girl in sundress between her parents) c. 1940

This photograph, with its long title, captures a family portrait, maybe from the mid-20th century, by Paul Gittings. It's an inverted black and white image, and the tones almost flatten the figures. You can see the edges of the photographic paper around the family, like a frame around a frame, or a stage for these figures. The family is posed, standing close, and holding each other in a formal way. The image has marks on the surface, like the residue of the studio or the darkroom, which I love. The woman's dark necklace and the man's tie have been given an extra layer of dark ink to make them stand out and define their shapes, and this is what draws me to the image. It brings to mind the work of Alice Neel, another portraitist preoccupied with the human figure. But whilst Neel finds a vulnerability in her sitters, this family portrait offers a more formal, studied depiction, caught in the chemical processes of photography. The photograph is a record, a trace of a fleeting moment, turned into something permanent.