Seagulls, Provincetown 1949

Sid Grossman made this photograph, "Seagulls, Provincetown," probably sometime in the 1940s, and it looks like he’s right in there with them, maybe even swimming? It’s a high-contrast black and white, with all these nervous little splashes and dashes making up the water and wings. I can imagine Grossman wading out into the cold Atlantic, camera in hand, trying to capture the frenzy of the gulls as they dive and wheel. You can almost feel the spray on your face and the cold, and hear their cries. I wonder if he ever felt like he was becoming one of them, caught up in the dance of hunger and survival? The overall composition is a swirl of motion, pulling you every which way. It reminds me of some of the Italian futurists and their paintings of flight and speed, like Giacomo Balla. Artists are always borrowing from each other, even across mediums and generations, and this photo puts me right in that zone of energy.