Thursday, July 31, 2008





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.