Untitled (small child seated on chair, holding silver cup) after 1940

Paul Gittings captured this image of a child with a cup sometime in the 20th century. The tones flow from dark to light, like a blurred memory, with soft focus around the edges. I like how the texture seems to shift and slide, almost like he was painting with light. Look at the child’s face, the way he catches her expression with this muted palette. It's interesting how photography, at this stage, looks so much like painting, where the process of making is very visible. The small cup in her hands is quite shiny, holding on to the light in a different way from the child herself. You can almost feel the weight of the object, the coldness of the metal. The blurred background throws the little girl into relief, and yet there’s something quite unsettling about the effect. Like a Francis Bacon painting, the blur adds to the intensity of the image. Gittings’ picture reminds us that art is about a way of seeing, not just a thing seen.