One of my recent photographs has been selected by Progressive Street as photo of the week.
And yes, I am very happy about it. Happier than is probably dignified to admit in public.
It is the image of the boy running with a toy gun in his hand. A quick scene, almost caught out of the corner of the eye: the body in motion, the arm lowered, the direct look into the camera. I did not have much time to think. Better that way, probably. Had I thought too much, I would have missed it.
What I especially liked is the text that accompanies the selection. It does not settle for the easy reading. It talks about play, childhood aggression, and the difference between a toy gun and real violence. But it also lets in that unavoidable unease: in some places, children do not play at war. They are dragged into it.
That ambiguity is, for me, what holds the photograph together. I do not know whether it is innocent, unsettling, or simply something that happened in front of me for half a second. Maybe all of it at once. The street does not ask permission to be contradictory.
Seeing it published by Progressive Street already made my day. Seeing it placed, even loosely, in conversation with photographs by William Klein and Diane Arbus is slightly dizzying. I am not going to pretend I belong at that height, because I still have a little shame left. But having one of my photographs read in that visual territory is a gift. A big one.
Thank you to Progressive Street and Batseba Hardy for looking at this image with such care.
Now I will pretend I have not refreshed the page too many times.
Leica M10 Monochrom · Lomography Atoll Ultra-Wide 17mm f/2.8
More Small Dramas here.
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