Photoessay #258 - Visual Trophies

I'm reflecting on an article I read last night in the New Yorker, pondering on why I am so attracted to these photos and how I feel so strongly regarding their importance. Are they precious because of their context? Their emotional impact? What if you have no connection to the people or the situation?

John Updike "Visual Trophies" New Yorker, December 24, & 31, 2007

With a poignancy peculiar to photographic images, the past is captured while its obliteration is strongly implied.

From Susan Sontag On Photography

To take a photograph is to participate in another person's (or thing's) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.

I'm often struck how we don't make a record of images around us because they are too banal, too usual, nothing special? Yet, if you see them when you are removed by time or by distance, they become so more important revealing.

Who cares about a picture of the North City Safeway circa 1979? Except that it's nearly 30 years later and I realize that I've witnessed and inhabited this community all this time. I HAVE seen transformation.

I don't have a picture of the North City Safeway...maybe somewhere.

Today's picture captures some former lives. Jim, my father in law, is conversing with Frank, the cat. Maybe 10 years ago. Both are gone now and both memorable. Frank, a stray tabby tomcat, wandered into our home when my kids were little. In fact, Danny was a toddler and soon Susanna arrived. Frank loved kids, he always made sure that he was around them. He felt they were his kids and he was never far away, watching and checking. Long and rangy, he was always gentle, a superior cat. You could have meaningful conversations with Frank, let him know how things should be and he would work on it. Later, when Danny developed serious asthma, we had to find other homes for our cats. Frank went to live with my in-laws for his retirement home a few blocks away. They adored him, took very good care of him.

I believe Jim passed away nearly two years ago tomorrow. We are nearly at his yarzheit. Perhaps that was why I was so attracted to this photo. I myself did the damage to the right side of the emulsion, some parts fixed with Photoshop. Jim was also always nearby and was devoted to Dennis in his later life. He also dedicated himself selflessly to the care of his beloved Lanaya.

Jim and Frank discuss the state of the world in their condo a few blocks away. The heavy wood pieces in the background are now in our living room. Victoria has the chocolate molds and likely the bench and the quilt.