Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Photo Journal Three - Francisco Mata Rosas, Two Boys Swimming with a Dog
Francisco Mata Rosas took this picture with an Ansco Pix Pano, a cheap plastic “panoramic” camera. It’s a 35mm camera that vignettes an already tiny image. You could crop your own shot and get the same effect and you could argue that a better camera could have made a better picture but I doubt it.
The boys and the dog are playing on a beach that seems less than ideal. There’s the bridge in the distance, maybe worse. I imagine that Mikhailov shot of the Russian men taking the waters out side a factory leaning against the concrete drain. It has that feeling of being off somehow. And the dog isn’t menacing like in Moriyama’s stray dog picture. He seems to be saying just leave us alone. (This was bullshit name dropping on my part. The last line is true though. The dog seems ashamed. )
It’s kind of pathetic and sweet. The photographer is intruding. I try to take my wife’s picture all the time. There these moments that I swear to god are beautiful in that “this is real life” way but she always catches me and the tableau changes to something posed or her hand goes up.
Rosas managed to get the moment. They acknowledge him and seem to want him to leave and it only adds to the image. I wonder if when I catch my wife and she catches me if the moment I am there to grab is the one right after she sees me and after she throws up her hands, that moment when she thinks I gone.
They look and maybe that was his chance to put the camera down and apologize for intruding but he didn’t - he stayed and there they were in a kind a Mexican existential stand off. Who looks away first? Only the dog shows his heartbreak and seems to be saying, "These are my boys. This is our beach. You make it less by watching."
Writing can be the same as photography. Most people just live. They get up, shit, eat, fuck and sleep until they die. I am so driven to get it right, to understand it, to show people what I’ve seen that I punch keys like the Penitent finger beads, mumbling to God.
This picture reminds me that art is not life. Words are not real things. Life is life. The irony being, how would I know if I hadn’t seen this picture and then tried to tell you about it.
Maybe it’s true that the photographer doesn’t have the right to look away, that the only choice is when to shoot.
Maybe a better picture could have been taken but I doubt.
The boys and the dog are playing on a beach that seems less than ideal. There’s the bridge in the distance, maybe worse. I imagine that Mikhailov shot of the Russian men taking the waters out side a factory leaning against the concrete drain. It has that feeling of being off somehow. And the dog isn’t menacing like in Moriyama’s stray dog picture. He seems to be saying just leave us alone. (This was bullshit name dropping on my part. The last line is true though. The dog seems ashamed. )
It’s kind of pathetic and sweet. The photographer is intruding. I try to take my wife’s picture all the time. There these moments that I swear to god are beautiful in that “this is real life” way but she always catches me and the tableau changes to something posed or her hand goes up.
Rosas managed to get the moment. They acknowledge him and seem to want him to leave and it only adds to the image. I wonder if when I catch my wife and she catches me if the moment I am there to grab is the one right after she sees me and after she throws up her hands, that moment when she thinks I gone.
They look and maybe that was his chance to put the camera down and apologize for intruding but he didn’t - he stayed and there they were in a kind a Mexican existential stand off. Who looks away first? Only the dog shows his heartbreak and seems to be saying, "These are my boys. This is our beach. You make it less by watching."
Writing can be the same as photography. Most people just live. They get up, shit, eat, fuck and sleep until they die. I am so driven to get it right, to understand it, to show people what I’ve seen that I punch keys like the Penitent finger beads, mumbling to God.
This picture reminds me that art is not life. Words are not real things. Life is life. The irony being, how would I know if I hadn’t seen this picture and then tried to tell you about it.
Maybe it’s true that the photographer doesn’t have the right to look away, that the only choice is when to shoot.
Maybe a better picture could have been taken but I doubt.
# posted by Mike : 10:27 AM
