Denver 1980

This image, "Denver," was captured by Robert Adams, who works with black and white film, a medium that lends itself to both realism and abstraction. The image feels both casual and considered, like a snapshot, but with attention to tonal balance. What strikes me most is how Adams manages to convey intimacy in a public space. You see a young woman embracing an older woman in a parking lot, presumably at an airport. The tones are soft, but the image is sharp enough that you can read the grittiness of the asphalt. The embrace, right in the center of the frame, is the visual and emotional core. The two women are physically connected. Adams’s work often touches on the way we inhabit space. Like a photographer such as Stephen Shore, Adams finds beauty and complexity in the everyday. There is a feeling of life caught on the fly, of ordinary moments imbued with meaning. The image invites us to find the extraordinary in the ordinary and to consider the many ways in which we connect with each other.