Walter Benjamin’s phrase “quiet exposure,” which he aptly used as a description of the peculiar silence that permeates nineteenth-century daguerreotype portraits, comes to mind when confronted with the sober faces pictured in the recent work of Guatemalan photographer Luis González Palma. Purposefully choosing to eschew artificial light and high-tech equipment, González Palma works with his sitters one-on-one, capturing expressions that are difficult to read but suggest contemplation, confrontation, melancholy, and sorrow.

In the recent exhibit, his signature sepia-toned, black-and-white photographs