Cropped Images
There’s nothing on the first pages of this family photo album.
Neither pictures nor paintings of the great grandparents who
were supposed to be shown here. They didn’t know anything
about photography. They used each other’s eyes to record
their memories.
Light is absorbed into these black empty spots and cannot
get reflected back. They’re all soldiers of the same blood and
flesh army, dead or alive, silent and often forgotten. From
time to time we make a stop at these imaginary graves
wondering which one of us resembles them.
Here comes another generation: the recently departed
grandparents, uncles, aunts, rich and poor cousins, with their
own stories frozen in celluloid.
Once the daylight touches their eyes, faces start to revive.
They sigh, smile and look for their dearest ones in the crowd.
What happened to you, they say, what happened to me … that
day, that night, that moment … They get sad and stare: Please,
send us back, we want to be somnambulists. Don’t wake us up.
I skip pages, coming close to the living empire: adults with
our own children, who know little about growing up.
We are not done with our time yet. There are battles to win,
at least arguments. We take pictures of every event, happy
pictures if possible. Although not sure we are happy, we need
to leave physical evidence of supposed happiness behind.
Somehow we remain idealists who love everything material.
Faces, gestures often surrounded by suspicious blurs taken
between invisible moments. Unnoticed moments, like
heartbeats; once important but never to be displayed again,
powerless to weaken our unique talent for pretending.
