Cathy c. 1952

Aaron Siskind made this gelatin silver print, Cathy, sometime during his lifetime, and what strikes me most is how the body becomes landscape. I’m thinking about the texture of the sand – how it clings to the skin like powdered sugar. The tonal range is so subtle, it’s almost monochromatic. There is a softness to the image – even the shadows seem gentle. I imagine Siskind, out there on location, coaxing his model into just the right position, waiting for the light to hit the sand in a way that would flatten and abstract the scene. It’s all about surface here, and the way light transforms our perception. Siskind, like many photographers of his generation, was deeply influenced by painting, and he, in turn, inspired countless painters. It’s a conversation across mediums, an ongoing exchange of ideas, each informing the other, pushing the boundaries of how we see and interpret the world around us.