Untitled (two rows of women in matching dresses and hats, with flowers, outside) c. 1945

This photograph by Paul Gittings shows two rows of women in matching dresses and hats, outside, holding flowers. I imagine Gittings carefully setting up this shot, framing the women against the backdrop of a large tree. Each figure is positioned just so, creating a formal arrangement that's both rigid and strangely comforting. The contrast is cranked up to eleven, turning the scene into something almost otherworldly. It's like looking at a memory bleached by the sun, or a dream half-remembered. It makes me think about the act of posing, the way people present themselves for the camera, and the stories they hope to tell. Are they a social club, a graduating class, a choir? Whatever the occasion, there is a sense of collective identity, a shared purpose. There's a vulnerability in their stillness, a willingness to be seen, to be remembered. I wonder what Gittings was thinking as he pressed the shutter, and what these women felt as they stood there, shoulder to shoulder, under the watchful eye of the lens.