Paracelsus 1957

This photograph by Frederick Sommer looks like it was made with light and shadow, almost as if it was painted. The image seems to emerge from a dark void, as if by trial and error. What was Sommer thinking when he made it? I bet he felt like he was coaxing an image out of nothing. Maybe he built it up slowly, adjusting the light, waiting to see what would happen next. The silvery quality of the gelatin printing-out paper has a liquid feel. The gestural marks could be brushstrokes that suggest texture, color, and surface. This way of working, letting the material guide you, is a great conversation between artists. Artists have always looked to each other, across time, inspiring and challenging each other to see the world in new ways. Sommer's work, in turn, encourages us to see photography as a conversation, an exchange of ideas where meanings are never fixed but always evolving.