Thursday, December 16, 2010

The ghosts of Christmas present


There are some payphones in the US Bancorp Center. Payphones. In wooden carrels. Just like the old days. There was a group of very down-and-out guys in threadbare winter rags surrounding one of their number who was shouting into a payphone. Not all of us are wirelessly connected. Some of us are barely connected at all. I shot this from the hip in dim light with slow film, letting the trails of a long exposure transform the image of a human dilemma into a ghostly water color, an abstraction of social inquity. It's about all I can handle this year.

Later, by the Target store, a dilapidated guy in army fatigues sat at a cafe table in the midst of the skyway furiously "writing" dense bales of black ball-point scribbles in a wire bound notebook. He stopped and occaisionally "explained" to an invisible comrade at his table. I wanted to sit with him and ask him his name, and give him a non-judgemental human contact. But I didn't have it in me. Not this year.

Let me come to terms with these conundrums and get back to you, ok?
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