Benares, India 1994

Michael Ackerman made this gelatin silver print, Benares, India, with photography, seemingly as a way to grab at something fleeting. It's like a memory, not quite in focus. The grayscale is gorgeous, with blacks that seem to absorb light and whites that glow, despite the palpable grit and graininess. Look at the person on the left, the way the eyes are so sharp, yet everything else is swallowed by the shadows. The texture is palpable, almost like you could reach out and feel the rough stone. There's a tension between the clarity of the gaze and the blur of movement, which gives the picture its strange energy. Ackerman makes me think a little of Daido Moriyama, with his high-contrast, grainy, street photography. But where Moriyama is all about the surface, Ackerman seems to be digging for something deeper, something more human. Ultimately, it's not about the place, but about the feeling, the sense of being lost and found at the same time.