Untitled (women wearing dresses, onstage) 1946

This silver gelatin print at the Harvard Art Museums shows a line of women in dresses. The dresses and the background all become these tonal experiments, and the women are arranged with this sense of a formal composition, but I imagine the artist was working fast to capture them. I can imagine Burian, the artist, thinking about how to transform this ordinary moment into something monumental through the play of light and shadow. The tonality is exquisite. It's like he's building a stage for them to be seen. Each woman is distinct, each dress a different texture, but they are also connected by the shared space and the soft, dreamy light. And that one figure with the accordion – how does she feel holding that thing? Are they about to sing? The beauty of this image is its ambiguity. It’s about fleeting moments and the quiet dignity of everyday life. Much like painting, photography at its best captures not just what is seen, but what is felt.