New York c. 1938

This photograph, New York, by Helen Levitt, freezes a moment using light and shadow. Look at how Levitt plays with depth, positioning her subjects inside a window that acts as a stage. There’s a quiet drama in the grayscale. The tones aren’t just black and white; they’re a whole symphony of grays, creating a textured feel. The composition is almost claustrophobic, with four figures crammed into the frame. The girl at the window on the right looks off to the side with a deep sense of introspection. The dark space behind them flattens out the scene. The image, in its complexity, feels like a scene from a film, or even a painting. Levitt's work has always reminded me of Garry Winogrand, they both observe with their cameras, and find a kind of accidental beauty in everyday life. This photograph embraces the ordinary, but it invites us to see something profound in the mundane.