Railroad station, Selma, Alabama Possibly 1973 - 1974

This photograph of the Railroad station, Selma, Alabama, was taken by William Christenberry, who was born in 1936. It looks like he captured it with a simple camera, maybe a snapshot. I’m thinking about Christenberry setting up his shot, trying to frame something so grand in such a small rectangle. It’s like he’s trying to hold onto something, pin it down. I see a building rendered in brick, painted in a powerful red. I can imagine the artist looking long and hard at the station, squinting even, thinking about what to capture. You can imagine how the sunlight would fall differently, how the station looks in different seasons. I wonder if he was thinking about time? The station feels like it belongs to another era. Taking a picture is always a little like that, trying to freeze time, even though everything keeps changing.