Untitled (large group of women at banquet tables) c. 1945

This photograph of a banquet shows many women seated at tables. It has an odd silvery quality, like an X-ray, and I wonder, was it shot as a negative? I imagine Robert Burian, the photographer, trying to capture this sea of faces, all those people gathered in one place. How do you make sense of a crowd? There are so many stories in this image, so many shared moments and individual experiences. I feel a sense of warmth, but also a kind of anonymity, the way people blend together in a large gathering. Photography is like painting in some ways. You're always trying to capture a feeling, a moment, something fleeting, but also something essential about being human. Like all artists, Burian makes choices about what to include and exclude, how to frame the world. And in the end, it's those choices that make the work so compelling. We bring ourselves to art, and art reflects us back.