No Waiting

Marilyn Nance

January 1977

A gelatin silver print photograph in which the artist quietly frames a domestic street scene — a boy leaning from an open window beneath a partially visible “No Waiting” sign — to capture an ironic moment about restriction and everyday life.

What strikes you is the spare, balanced composition: twin shuttered windows, a mesh-covered pane beside a curtained opening, and the boy’s turned head and checkered shirt that create a small human story set against stark light and shadow.

Working in the documentary tradition, this photograph uses ordinary architecture and a fleeting human gesture to expose everyday social rules and the intimate rhythms of urban life, showing how photography can reveal cultural nuance.

Palette

Art Terms

Gelatin silverprint (developing-out paper) Photography Documentary photography Street photography Built environment Figure/ground relationship

Exhibitions

Faces and Places in Brazil: Photographs by Genevieve Naylor

1943

Contemporary Photography Reinstallation

1986

New York/New York

1978

American Photographs at $10

1941