Back in the days when flashes used powder that popped with each burst of light, memories were layered with fright, an aesthetic defined by the noise of powder—the sound like a gun. Every person looked like a victim. And everyone remembered everyone else as a victim when they looked at the photographs. One smart child chose to be shot with a peru-colored hood over his spud-y head, with holes for his eyes and mouth. His portraits constitute the only record we have of what someone non-startled would have looked like circa 1932. Photography is a bleaching agent.
