Untitled (woman in black dress with ornately decorated sleeves sitting on studio step prop) after 1940

This photograph of a woman in a black dress with decorative sleeves, was taken by Paul Gittings. It’s an image of pure monochrome where tone and shade really tell the story. There's a stark contrast between the darkness of her dress and the sleeves, which are a delicate display of floral embroidery. The interplay of light and shadow is so carefully balanced, that the woman almost emerges from the background. The sleeves look like a painting of their own, almost a study in the way light can transform texture. Look at how the light catches the detail of the decoration on the sleeves and the way this contrasts with the dark, velvet like texture of the dress. It has a similar feel to some of the photographs of Man Ray, where the subject is presented as both a person and an object of visual fascination. Here, Gittings presents the sitter as an exercise in monochrome, drawing attention to the dialogue between shadow and detail, with the woman's dress as the canvas.