Storied Splendor
http://www.lauramcphee.com
Admire this well-composed and engaging photograph of a Calcutta store by contemporary American photographer Laura McPhee. The lovely near-symmetry of the paired windows, with the colors almost aligned and the vertical and rectangular shapes perfectly balanced. The orange pieces in the window are also anchored by the coral color in the background, but the image is visually flattened by the glass windows, the shallow perspective, and the abstract forms. The whole has a Mondrian feel.
Yet the close-up framing of the storefront is wonderfully evocative of American vernacular photographs like Walker Evans’s too. Keep looking, though: the palette and the words, though English, reveal the foreignness and unfamiliarity of this place and space. The lettering of the signage looks almost Art Deco, which again confounds easy reading of this image. The windows, lit from within, seem to be looking out at us, while simultaneously drawing us in to buy.
In: contemporary, photography, street life · Tagged with: Calcutta, Laura McPhee