fences

In the discussion regarding "Behind the Fence" Anonymous writes:

The woman is not just in a bad mood. She is standing with her arm on her hip and to me, her body is saying, stay away. She not only has a fence around her; she has a wall.

This series of photos troubles me--in many respects the subject feels objectified. Just look where she is: between two fences, penned in. I think there is good cause for Anonymous' feelings of discomfort with the previous photo (as well as this one). The photographer (myself) is not only separated from his subject by a fence, he is observing her from a vantage point that makes her appear as though she is in a cage.

The other photograph suggests to many that this woman saw and responded to me with suspicion, anger, or both. That however closed and divisive it may have been, there was a moment of mutual relationship between us. I, for one, am not so sure. This photo is easier to take, in many respects, because she is interacting with the child. We can be voyeurs without confronting the mirror of her gaze.

However, if you look carefully at her posture in this photo, it feels similarly guarded. I took this photo before the other one, before she ostensibly saw me. To me, she is equally difficult to reach here.

These two hurriedly snapped photographs fail as investigations into the subjectivity of this woman (in my mind) because there is no subject-subject relationship established between us. It becomes a sort of reflexive photograph, a photograph about me, the way I am looking at her (as a person who is difficult to reach).

What do you think might have happened if I had taken this photo from inside the fence? Or lingered longer and tried to contact her? I can tell you that I didn't because I was afraid that the mothers and nannies in the park would think I was some kind of creep or pedophile for hanging around snapping photos of their kids. I don't doubt that I was worried this woman might suspect me of some sort of racial prejudice (I am white and after all, and aware that I feel guilty in these situations.)

Can we know anything about this woman from these photographs? Maybe, maybe not. I think James' and Herman's theories regarding this woman's feelings are both potentially valid. However, I do think Anonymous is correct in reading some racial tension, or a derivative thereof. I suspect that feeling comes not intrinsically from the photograph's ostensible subject/object, but from the way in which I took the photograph. Who is the real subject of this picture? Perhaps, Anonymous, you are reading suspicion in the woman in so far as she is mirroring my own suspicion, and by extension, yours.

No surprise: shortly after these men arrived at the fence, their conversation turned philosophical.

This is one of the most poetic places in the city. When it is gusting, I like to lean over the fence. I find myself suddenly reconnected to space. Here, feeling flows through the body like wind. It is less contained—the recollection of an ancient memory, so intrinsic that it is effortlessly freed.

The buildings from this vantage take on a scenic majesty that often reminds me of looking at mountains. Always, I feel a surge of joy and relief followed by a sense of calm. Physical landscape and consciousness mirror each other. The visual perspective of this place provokes reflection, introspection, depth. On cool windy evenings when shadows are long and the light is deep, many people simply hug the fence and gaze out.

How is it that what we experience as isolation in crowds becomes attentive, expansive solitude in open space?

she didn't seem too happy about this photo...