I hate phrases like “unimportant person,” “important person,” “ordinary people.” Jesus is “no respecter of persons.” Neither was Rembrandt or Goya. Neither am I. It’s a different and fitting matter, though, to respect people, but only in part, for what they’ve accomplished of value and provided for the rest of us.
This photograph of mine was recently chosen for a “portraits” exhibition of the A Smith Gallery in Texas. The Juror was Donna Garcia, a photographer who works as the Director of Education and Programs for the Griffin Museum of Photography in Boston. The image was also included in a “Street Lights” series that received a Prize Nomination in the 2023 Fine Art Photography Awards administered in London, England.
I didn’t know and don’t know anything about this “Handsome Father and Handsome Son” apart from what I saw of them one day while walking on Main Street in downtown Hartford, Connecticut – that is, anything beyond what drew me to them and made me ask the man if I could photograph them; what then made me decide to edit this photo and submit it for exhibitions and competitions.
Yes, they’re handsome, but look, too, at the remarkable, easy grace of their faces and bodies in front of my camera, and of their relationship to each other. See the way that the father holds his son, supported and elevated, but not confined or constricted. Their presences, mysterious but palpable, made and still makes them important to me.
Some people seem ordinary to us because they hide so much, not necessarily by their own choosing, or because we just don’t see deeply into them.
To this point, here’s a poem by one of my favorite poets, the late Nobel Prize-winner, Tomas Transtromer (translated by Patty Crane):
Romanesque Arches Inside the enormous Romanesque church, tourists crammed into the half-darkness. Vault opening behind vault and no view of the whole. Several candle flames flickered. An angel without a face embraced me and whispered through my whole body: “Don’t feel ashamed that you’re human, be proud! Inside you, vault behind vault opens endlessly. You’ll never be complete, and that’s how it should be.” I was blind with tears and driven out into the sun-simmering piazza together with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Mr. Tanaka and Signora Sabatini and inside each of them vault behind vault opened endlessly.