Untitled (portrait of a little girl, hands folded in front of chest) c. 1940

This photo, by Paul Gittings, shows a girl with her hands folded, but it’s been printed as a negative. That immediately throws you off, doesn't it? Like, what am I really looking at here? The texture is what gets me. It looks like the photograph has been crumpled, folded, or maybe even printed on some kind of weird plastic. The creases run right across the girl's face, like cracks in glass. Those folds change the whole feel of the piece, adding a layer of abstraction. Look at the way the light falls on her hands. The stark contrast makes them seem almost ghostly. And those eyes! Burning right through the image. It reminds me of the way Francesca Woodman used to mess with the photographic process, making images that are both beautiful and unsettling. It's this conversation between light and dark, surface and depth, that makes this image so compelling.