New York c. 1938

This photograph, *New York*, was captured by Helen Levitt, and like all photos, it started with a moment, a decision to frame something in the world. There are four people in the frame; a young girl peers out with her head resting in her hand looking pensively off to the left, a woman with a striped shirt stands behind her with a similar gaze, then there's an older lady who looks directly at the camera, and a girl sitting with her hands clasped, looking up. The curtains and the window frame itself create a proscenium, and you wonder what it was like for Levitt to be on the street looking up at them and what she must have felt to see these faces looking back. It's a picture about looking, about spectatorship, about how we see each other. Thinking about it makes me want to go out into the streets and find my own frame to put around the world.