This photo is, I feel, a quiet masterpiece. Something so ordinary has become thrilling. The soft heads of the grasses are haloed in light, and the spiky leaves, going every which way, are tight and expansive in the midst of a composition at once dynamic, stark, and tender.

I first saw this photograph not long after I began to study Aesthetic Realism. It moved me greatly then, and still does. That tuft of grass pushing up through the cracks in the sidewalk seemed to stand for something I felt—new life breaking through hardness, finding its way into light.

The bold diagonal of the concrete step joins the more subtle geometry created by light and shadow. And while looking down, the photographer tilts up the picture plane, honoring this delicate life.

In Black & White, A Poem with Photographs, Louis Dienes tells how his life changed studying Aesthetic Realism. And he writes: “The message of my book is: beauty can be seen in what you may find around you.” 

—Carrie Wilson

 

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THE HONORING EYE: 18 Photographers Look at the World