Harlem Store Front 1934

This photograph, Harlem Store Front, was taken by James Van Der Zee, sometime during his career, and it immediately strikes me as a picture made with a certain level of technical precision, but with a clear intention to let some grit show through. Look at the way the light falls on the shopfront, how the glass reflects the street back at us, and how that street almost feels to extend into the deep space of the store’s interior. There’s a push and pull between surface and depth here. Van Der Zee doesn't shy away from showing us the wear and tear of the city. In fact, I think he embraces it. Those scrawled numbers on the right of the photograph, the imperfections in the signage above the shop, they're all part of the story. This feels like a precursor to the work of someone like Helen Levitt, who also had an eye for the everyday beauty of city life. Ultimately, it's a photograph that leaves space for our own stories and experiences, a reminder that art is as much about what we bring to it as what the artist puts in.