after the ride
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You’re stopping people from the flow of their lives,
you’re cropping them from the space in which they live and have their being,
you’re juxtaposing them to something that they didn’t know they were next to.
~ John Rosenthal
He is *really* not comfortable in front of my camera these days. Because I understand these feelings, and also relate to Rosenthal’s above sentiments that a photograph can easily be construed as an act of aggression, I don’t push it too often. But still, he’s my kid, and I’m a photographer, so it’s kinda inevitable that our paths will cross in this way on occasion.
He’d been on a bike ride this past weekend and as he came down the street towards home I had the thought that if I was ready and quick enough I might just get lucky and snap a frame or two of him before he gave me the pained, “oh, God” expression I’m so familiar with. Since it was the middle of the day and the outdoor lighting rather harsh, I decided I’d catch him as he rolled into the garage, before he even got off his bike. I wanted something natural and true to him, sweat and all……..an image that spoke to his complex and earnest spirit but also his extraordinary kindness and compassion. Not asking so much, eh?!?
The first image I shot was closer to what I’d hoped to achieve than the above, but I realized he was too far into the garage, and the shadows would be too extreme for my liking, with no catch light in the darkened eye. When I had him turn his bike around and roll a bit closer to the garage opening I knew my window of opportunity was quickly closing. He became too camera aware, uneasiness creeping across his face and onto the film, stealing the spontaneity of the moment.
What causes so many of us to become reluctant, awkward and leery of being photographed as we grow out of childhood? Is it what we fear the camera may reveal of us, or more what it fails to express? I look at my son in this image with such awareness of all that he is that can’t be seen here, and this leaves me feeling I’ve failed as a photographer. I didn’t remotely capture all that I know to be true. But perhaps I’m asking too much of myself and of him. There is always more to the story than the eye can see, an intangible ever-changing element that can only be completely understood when in the physical presence of someone we love. How can we expect a single photograph to contain within it all that feeling?
~Cynthia
