What are photographs that you weren’t there for, that evoke emotion out of you?
For me, this is one. The man in the photo is my mother’s first husband, and the father of my sisters. The context of the photos is why it evokes feelings in me. I’ve always held a fascination in the guy, given that he was and remains the great love of my mother’s life and his mistakes, failures, and ultimately, his death allowed for my life. The picture was taken in May 1973. It is one photo in the final set of them together. They would break up in November 1973 after being unhappy together for months due to his not having a job and his steadily increasing drinking, and they would never see each other again until he laid in his coffin. He would die a broken man, of acute alcohol overdose, at the age of 34 in 1986, four years before I was born. By the time my father met my mother in 1989, he had a policy due to bad experiences previously which dictated that he wouldn’t date a woman with children if the children’s father was alive. So, in a twisted sense, I owe this man my existence, and it is through him I have my siblings. When I look at this photo, of a fence separating he and my mother, it for me foreshadows their breakup later in the year, and the pained look on his face saddens me knowing his late. He did not ever have a happy life.
I think of these lyrics:
“Cold summer, glistening;
Hot color, melting the anger to stone;
I still remember the dream there;
I still remember the time you said goodbye.”
It is fitting too - he loved progressive rock music.
Years ago, a book about Sanfermines included a picture of a very thin, very serious teenager wearing a too-large suit, making the sign of the Cross with a knee on the floor of the street. The caption did not identify him but did say the picture was taken on July 7th during the procession of San Fermín in Pamplona.
My family could have added the year, as that teenager happened to be my future Dad. His mother knew he wanted to run with the bulls (at 14 he was considered old enough to do it) and had “mistakenly” sent his running shoes and Sanfermines gear ahead to the family’s vacation home. That’s the suit and shoes in which he ran, mother or no mother. Along with a different Sanfermines picture in which him and his best friend, both 15yo, share a rocking horse, it’s my favorite picture of Dad. I like knowing he too was a teenager once
A high school friend who had a talent for evocative writing spent her junior year in Mexico, in a city along the Pacific coast. She wrote me wonderful letters each week and included at least one photo. On her last day there, she took a photo of the sun setting over the ocean - all golds and umbers and blues. With the photo in the envelope was a sheet of paper with one sentence. “How do I leave this?”
I blew that photo up to 10 X 12 and framed it. To this day it hangs on my bedroom wall, and when the world thwarts me and I need to find my happy place, I lose myself in that lovely, peaceful sunset.
Schoep was an elderly dog full of arthritis, and his guardian would take him out into the water to take the weight off his bones. For an hour a day Schoep could enjoy some pain-free peace in the arms of the one who loves him.
I always liked this photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt. It’s of children watching a puppet show in Paris in 1963, and their excitement at the climax when “the dragon is slain”.
This picture, taken by their son, of an Ebola-stricken American missionary being read the Bible over Skype by his wife, who was literally in the next room, has always really gotten to me. It’s about halfway down in the article.
Sure, walking around on the Moon, or pictures from the surface of Mars are great. But I’m glad that we live in a world where this picture can be taken.
