Silver Lake Boulevard/Marathon Street, Silver Lake Possibly 1995 - 1996

Madoka Takagi made this photograph, Silver Lake Boulevard/Marathon Street, Silver Lake, no date given, with an analog camera, probably a medium or large format. It's funny isn’t it, how a photograph sort of memorializes a specific point of view? The quiet street stretches and bends slightly away from us. There's a church and some trees. Light and shadow dapple every surface. I imagine Takagi, out there on the street, looking at the scene. What did she see when she looked through the viewfinder? What did she want to communicate? The perspective is high, the light is flat, so what drew her to the scene? I’m trying to sympathize with the artist here, and maybe connect it to something I understand about art making. There's something about the quiet and the stillness that resonates with me. It reminds me of Edward Hopper, or maybe even some of the early street photography of the 1930s. Photographers are always looking, thinking, and seeing the world in their own way. Takagi’s photograph of Silver Lake is a snapshot of a particular time and place, but it also speaks to something more universal, which is the beauty and quiet you can sometimes discover in the everyday.