The first was a weary, weathered looking man in a wheelchair, and leaning into him in a way that suggested her body was constructed not of solid bones but of something more along the lines of rubber bands was a young woman with a clipboard. I stopped just in time to hear her explain something about the process of registering to vote, and then slowly – and this, to me, was the moment meant for a picture – she handed him the clipboard in such a way that it appeared they were at the same level, vertically, which they were not. There was something communion-ish about it, I thought.
The second scene I witnessed – and failed to photograph because I did not, at that time, have or own a camera – centered around the long row of narrow tables, covered in white plastic and stacked high with hamburger buns, loaves of bread, energy bars and so on. Behind the tables stood three people – servers, I presume – and behind them the statuary figures of three men, the hand of one of them holding a gigantic fork someone had placed there. And behind the statue, or over it, a white tarp that transformed the dismal light of a November afternoon into a quality that could almost be called bright. I cannot articulate the particulars of it, or the physics, but as I stood facing the food tables I had the distinct impression that the scene itself was both moving toward and moving above me, like a jet, I suppose, coming toward you as it prepares to lift and fly over the point where you’re standing.
The camera I bought on Sunday morning, after waking up to thoughts of the photographs I’d missed the day before, is a shiny silver Nikon Coolpix S3100. I’m still getting used to it, of course. On the one hand I feel like I’m carrying a pistol without a permit. On the other, I feel like I’m learning a new language, which has always struck me as a worthwhile pursuit.
