Untitled (woman seated on sofa with two babies, girl standing to side) c. 1940

This is an undated photographic negative, by Paul Gittings, showing a woman seated on a sofa with two babies and a girl standing to the side. It's funny how this image presents itself in reverse, a ghostly vision in monochrome that makes you think about the hidden layers in how we see. The woman’s dress and the sofa almost merge, a soft white cascade in the dark room. The texture seems smooth, the details obscured by the photographic process. Look at how the faces of the twins almost disappear as if fading out of view. I imagine this is a family portrait. The children seem suspended between presence and absence, like memories forming in the ether. I love the way Gittings embraces this ambiguity, leaving us to fill in the blanks and question the nature of representation itself. It reminds me a bit of some of the photographic work of Gerhard Richter, with its blurring and obfuscation of detail. Both reveal something of the precarious and fleeting nature of images.