Diane Arbus with Doon, 1945
There is one asset of photography
you will primarily notice while looking at images depicting your life:
it opens the door for the intrusion of the past into the present.
When I saw the left image of this sequence of two,
I was reminded of a young woman, of her,
the mother of my son, and I remembered, how I,
actually still being a boy but in the same time also a young man,
unexpectedly and unprepared for, became a father.
I was startled by the passing of time.
This being startled was twofold:
the young woman on the photograph is Diane Arbus.
She is the woman who would produce photographs
that hit me in the stomach every time I see them
because of their extraordinary quality.
She is the woman who will,
somewhere on this long an winding road called life,
commit suicide.
Thus my perception connects with my emotions
and my knowledge and turns into the starting point to thread of thoughts,
not actually thinking but drifting randomly through bits and pieces,
musings about life, about what has been, about what is and what will come.
The young woman is not pressing this tiny creature to her body.
She draws her close to her body and draws herself nearer to the child.
She keeps a bit of a distance.
Thus she is not drowning in a wave of love and bewilderment,
but stays aware of her child as a person.
Again and again I look into the face this young woman.
That what I see, I can’t put into words.
Anything I could say would be too much or not enough.
