Fabrizio Spagnolo

Photography is an elegiac art, a twilight art. Most subjects photographed are, just by virtue of being photographed, touched with pathos…. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.

That’s Susan Sontag kicking photography’s ass with each polysyllabic word. And she’s right. You could attempt to reduce this photograph to its internal geometry — the lines and shapes. You could concentrate the discussion on the technical reasons why the distortions of perspective were caused by the wide-angle lens. You could make some sort of ecological commentary about the need for trees in an urban environment.

You could do all that, but you cannot escape the photographer’s participation in this man’s mortality. You cannot escape your own participation in it. You simply cannot look at this photograph and not be aware of time’s relentless melt. The beauty of this photograph doesn’t depend entirely on its glorious geometry; it also depends on our awareness that this photo contains a dirge, a lament, a funeral song. The beauty and power of this photograph also depends on our understanding that this moment has passed, and it’s the reality of its passing that makes it so very precious.

Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work