EYE TO EYE
On the wall of my dark narrow hallway that connects all the rooms of my house I’ve put about 25 Mixtile portraits around a larger framed portrait. These are Indians whose faces have touched me during India trips since 1998 when I discovered photography. All of them except one are looking me right in the eye. They are all people I didn’t know. I wasn’t in their presence for longer than it takes to lift a camera and click a photograph. I don’t know anything about any one of them. By now most of the girls are married and have children. Some of the older people have died by now, one that I know of. No one is the same or even looks the same as they did when photographed. And yet, there they are, looking me in the eye while I look at them. For a moment I shared a space on earth with them and they looked at me and I looked at them. I can’t tell from their faces what they think about me and I can’t remember why I photographed them. Generally I was such a surprise that they didn’t have time to think anything.
So why did they touch me so much then and touch me even more intensely now as I walk past them down the hall.
The moment is gone as is all of the past. And yet they are still still stir me as if they were right here. The lost moment is eternal somehow, the eternal present.
(For more faces look at Eye To Eye a photo book on blurb.com and if you want it for yourself wait for Blurb to have a 40% off sale.)
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 