Untitled (Waiting Room) 2006

Angela Strassheim made this photograph, Untitled (Waiting Room), and it feels like a very particular moment. Strassheim’s works often have a kind of washed out palette, an almost clinical approach to colour that reflects something of the scene depicted. You know, there's a formality to the composition and lighting that intensifies the image’s emotional resonance. I keep coming back to the texture, the way the light catches the man's shirt, the muted shades and how it contrasts with the little girl's dress. The texture is what makes it stick, gives it that lingering quality. Strassheim's image calls to mind the kinds of staged images we see in the work of Jeff Wall, but there's also a distinctive quality that makes her images unique. The waiting room is the subject, not any singular narrative or interpretation of it. It’s all there, the moment, the waiting, and the feeling.