Late-Arriving Pictures

Andrew Witt | Los Angeles Review of Books | 29th October 2026

Images of jazz musicians by Lisette Model showcase her “plainspoken” style. DeCarava’s jazz images were different. His work does not provide a standard narrative about Black experience. Famous musicians are shown alongside “garment workers and labourers”. When manipulated in the darkroom to achieve “an astonishing range of tonal gradations and transitions”, the images become “elusive”. This is DeCarava exploring whether “sound can acquire a visible form”.