Robert Mapplethorpe is an American photographer known for his black and white images. He worked almost exclusively in black and white, which led to his appreciation in the subtleties between barely distinguishable shades of grays and whites and blacks. While there is more conversation around his more controversial photographic themes, like that of NYC subcultures, I chose this image, "Apartment Windows" (1977) because it is a different enough still life from the other images I've blogged about.

The image is of a facade of an apartment building. There is a 7x11 grid of windows, and each row alternates from six to five to six. There is a shadow, likely caused by another building, over the majority of the left third. This photograph focuses on those subtleties between grays that Mapplethorpe was a fan of.

The windows have curtains and blinds, but they are all organically different. Some have the shade all the way down, others up. The curtains fall straight down in most, but one window stands out by having them out of the way. Looking in, the apartment is black. It's the strongest black in the photograph. The whitest whites come from having both the blinds and curtains, the blackest black comes from the lack of both.

I can't say that I found a mood to this image. It didn't strike me from an emotional angle. What drew me in is the analytical aspect of it. By having the windows arranges in a grid across the entire image, I felt the need to count and see how symmetrical it was. I found that the arrangement is consistent. The last column on the right has the windows fully visible. The column on the far left has them bisected.

The technical arrangement of the photograph is what makes this interesting. That and how small differences between the windows change the shades, along with the creeping shadow on the left.

James Van Der Zee is Black photographer who was based out of New York. He started working as a photographer during the Harlem Renaissance. Because of this time period, his early work set out to document and reconstruct the perception of black people. His portraits aimed to change social expectations for who black people are and could be. This photograph is titled "Raccoon Couple in Car," (1932). It is one of his most recognizable.

The image shows two people, a white woman and a black man, in a car in New York City. The man is in a fancy, shiny convertible, which considering the year this was taken, is not a common sight. Black people weren't expected to be able to afford such things. The man is also dressed in a fur coat and hat, which gives off this swagger. The woman next to him is also dressed in a similar fur coat, with nice shoes. Three residential New York buildings are seen in the back, hinting that this is just in a neighborhood, a natural setting. And the woman being white carries it's own implications. At a time where racism was far more prevalent, to have a white woman with a Black man meant that in no sense are Black men lesser than white men.

What Van Der Zee accomplished with this image coincides with what the Harlem Renaissance was about. Black people were reinventing what it meant to be Black in America, and this picture shows that they are just as capable of high class indicators. It may not seem that revolutionary now, but for the time it worked to rebuild the image of a Black American. A simple portrait that captures this movement.

And from a technical standpoint, the photograph is framed in an interesting way. The image shows us the entirety of the woman. The middle and lower thirds are dedicated to the subject, with the top third providing context to where it was taken. The shiny car reflects a lot of light, which tells the viewer it's new and expensive. The convertible top solidifies that this is a pricey vehicle, and having the man in the driver's seat, looking at the camera nonchalantly, adds a mood or feeling of confidence.