Blued Tree with Green Foliage, Cape Cod, Massachusetts Possibly 1978 - 1979

Harry Callahan made this photograph of a blued tree with green foliage in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. What strikes me is the interplay between depth and flatness. We have a sense of looking *into* the dense network of branches and foliage, and yet the image teeters on the edge of abstraction, dissolving into pure texture. The blues and greens aren't what you might expect from a typical landscape. Callahan seems to be pushing the boundaries of color, creating a subtly unsettling effect. The light feels almost palpable, like a tangible substance coating the leaves. It reminds me a little of Minor White's interest in the emotional potential of the photographic image. Both artists embrace ambiguity. Callahan invites us to lose ourselves in the details while pondering the bigger picture, our place within the natural world, perhaps. Ultimately, the photograph resists any easy answers, existing in the space between representation and something more mysterious.