Sisters of Charity, Washington DC1956
David Moore’s wide-ranging photographic practice often engaged experimentation with abstraction and design. This is one of Moore’s most famous photographs and depicts a group of nuns wearing traditional wimples. Moore photographed this scene from the mezzanine level of Washington National Airport. At first glance the subject of this image is not instantly recognisable and the hats could easily be mistaken for origami boats. In this image Moore expresses his strong sense of design, composition and form as well as his interest in the ambiguous nature of photographic images.
(2014)
Gelatin silver prints are black-and-white photographic prints that have been created using papers coated with an emulsion of gelatin and light-sensitive silver salts. After the papers are briefly exposed to light (usually through a negative), a chemical developer renders the latent image as reduced silver, which is then fixed and washed. This technique was first introduced in the 1870s and is still used today. Most twentieth-century black-and-white photographs are gelatin silver prints. They are known for being highly detailed and sharply defined prints with a distinguishable smooth, even image surface.