Untitled (studio portrait of four women in matching dresses) after 1935

Paul Gittings made this black and white photograph of four women in matching dresses, sometime in the twentieth century. It’s a studio shot, and the staging gives me an eerie sense of déjà vu. There's a lot of mid-tone grey here, which almost flattens the image. The textures of the glossy fabric of the dresses, and the women’s styled waves are where we get all of the information in the image. It feels like the product of a photo booth but with an element of skill involved in the arrangement of the women. Look at the way each woman is ever so slightly out of focus, the bottom left woman more than the others. What does this mean? It pulls me in, makes me wonder why. I'm reminded of Cindy Sherman, and the way she plays with female archetypes. This piece makes me wonder what kind of image of women Gittings was hoping to conjure.