Gloucester, Massachusetts. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Lopez. They have two boys in the armed forces, six children altogether. He is a fish skinner in the Gorton-Pew fishery after 1943

Gordon Parks made this photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Lopez, in Gloucester, Massachusetts. I’m looking at the detail in the fabric of her polka dot dress and in the floral wallpaper behind them, and the way the light catches his glasses. The image feels formal, dignified, like a painted portrait. I wonder what Parks thought about while he was creating the work. Did he direct them, or just observe them? Did he know the stories of their two sons in the armed forces, or imagine what it was like to be the wife of a fish skinner? The composition reminds me of other iconic portraits from the period, like the photographs of Walker Evans, but there is also something unique in the subjects’ stillness and the way their ordinariness becomes monumental. It seems to me the artist sought to capture not just their likeness, but their dignity, and resilience too. He has made this image to last.