Sunny Chen, 2020

American photographer Harry Callahan often photographed his wife, Eleanor, and experimented with various lighting conditions and photographic effects.¹

Eleanor, Chicago (1948) is a black and white photograph by Callahan, depicting Eleanor on a chair in a room with a large window. The scale of the room is large compared to Eleanor’s figure in the lower right corner. She is posed nude with her back facing the camera. The lighting effect creates a strong contrast in the photograph. The walls of the room are dark, while the light coming through the window in the center is very bright and almost completely white. The light reflects off of Eleanor, accentuating the shape of her shoulders and back.

At first glance, the photograph seems to have a despondent mood, given the considerable amount of darkness and deteriorating quality of the walls. Eleanor’s gaze is directed towards a section of the room filled with more light, and she perhaps can see something out of the frame that is not visible to the viewer. Thus there is a feeling of hope in the image, but the mysterious and unknown quality remains.

References

¹ “’Eleanor, Chicago’, Harry Callahan, 1948.” Tate. Accessed September 9, 2019.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/callahan-eleanor-chicago-p14518.