Approaching Horseshoe Curve, Altoona, Pennsylvania 1992

James Welling’s photograph shows a set of train tracks disappearing into the distance, somewhere in Pennsylvania. It’s not about a place, it’s about a feeling. The high contrast gives the scene a theatrical, almost dreamlike quality. Looking at it is like remembering something, an experience, or the telling of a story. The way the snow clumps in the foreground feels physical, present, while the rest of the image fades into the distance. The tracks lead our eye to the vanishing point, but they also divide the image into sections, it’s strangely geometric. It reminds me a bit of some of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s photographs of industrial structures. Like the Becher’s, Welling is asking us to look closely at something we might otherwise overlook.