Untitled (close-up portrait of deceased woman) c. 1945

Curator: This rather haunting image, currently held at the Harvard Art Museums, is an untitled photograph of a deceased woman, credited to John Deusing. Editor: Wow, it’s like a ghostly lullaby. Inverted like this, she seems to float away into the cosmos. Curator: The image certainly plays with symbolic inversions. Light and shadow, life and death... Photography, of course, has a long association with mourning practices and the preservation of memory. Editor: I get a sense of both peace and unease. I mean, that pearl necklace is just radiant! The negative effect has turned the image into a study of what we can no longer see. Curator: Absolutely. It's a fascinating way to consider how photography allows us to engage with both the presence and the absence of a loved one. Editor: I think you're right! It reminds us that every image is a meditation on time.