(no subject)
Portrait of Love
What would you do if confronted with the most beautiful portrait that you’ve ever seen in your life: the model’s eyes are gently closed, her lips are posed in a serene smile, and she just seems at peace with the world? You think, “The next Mona Lisa, the next Madonna, the next Great Work of Art.” She’s as beautiful as she is exquisite; you love everything about her from her eyelashes to her ankles. You love the way the candlelight plays with the highlights in her golden hair, the way the water reflects the light back in calm, miniscule waves, and the way the droplets seem to float on the surface of her skin in a pearlescent shimmer. You drink in the warm vanilla scent from the bubbles, the sweet floral aroma of the scented candles, and the thin trace of perfume left on the clothes hanging on the door to your right. The air has a comforting wetness to it, damp steam rising from the bath and soaking the air with a powerful fairytale moment. You take it all in, your head becoming giddy with the beauty of it all. In your head, you can hear the orchestra playing its gentle lullaby, the sweet notes of the violin followed by the cello and the flute, until the weight of the camera hanging from the strap around your neck breaks into your reverie and you feel a strong compulsion to take a photograph, to capture the moment, to capture the stillness, to capture the perfection.
Once, back during the day of my impressionable youth, I was asked a question. The man had described to us a horrific scenario of a man suffering a heart attack and as we all sat staring blankly at him, confused as to the reasoning behind his logic, he asked us a question that would change the rest of my life. “If you had a camera in your hand and then saw someone having a heart attack, what would you do? Would you help him and dial 911, or would you take a picture?” The school representative had just spent the past half-hour dismissing the notion that any of us were “true artists” because we didn’t take chances, because we had morals, because we had hearts. I knew the answer he wanted so I shouted it out, “Take a picture!” The man laughed, a hearty laugh that seemed genuine and false at the same time, and smiled, nodding his head. “Yes, son, you’re exactly right! You’ll be a true artist yet!” He then spent a few minutes drawing a caricature of us watching our teacher having a heart attack with myself in the corner taking a photo with an oversized camera. He handed it to me, along with a pat on the head, and walked out of the door. I looked after him, wondering what had just happened, but I dismissed it and went back to my buddies. It was time for lunch and that day it had been Meatball Sandwich Day. I remember sticking the drawing in my locker, slamming the door shut, and following my friends down the hall. I knew it was bullshit, but the stranger’s words kept resonating in my head, etched into my memory. A true artist.
Many years passed and in that time I went to school for photography, learning every tip and trick of the trade and devouring just about every book possible written on the techniques of the subject. I wasn’t worried about the opinions of others; I took photos as I saw them. A man lying homeless on a steamy grate, an elderly couple suffering bruises and broken limbs in a car crash, drunk teenage girls teetering precariously on stiletto heels as they walked one another’s scantily clad bodies home. I took advantage of the situations, bypassing any caution tape or signs that were in my way. I became a local celebrity, the man known for getting “The Shot” because I wasn’t afraid of taking a chance; I wasn’t afraid of being looked at as heartless when I stepped over the arms of a dead junkie or stared a starving, little child in the face just to take a picture of his eyes. I’m an artist, and an artist that needs to survive. My photos don’t fall into the category of the “ethically evaluative photograph,” according to my wife’s high school photography book, “Criticizing Photographs.” I’m not trying to prove any points or start a cultural revolution. Yes, my photographs make people often gasp in shock, but it is in the way I take the picture, not the intention I have behind it. I’m not, as the book states, “trying to praise or condemn aspects of society,” yet I’m called heartless, unethical, and selfish behind my back. It isn’t what I want to do, but it pays the bills. Inside, I think of my photos as “aesthetically evaluative” works of art. Art that, according to the author Terry Barrett, is “usually of beautiful things photographed in beautiful ways.” Why is it my fault that I can find the beauty hiding beneath the grotesque? Why can’t others see the vivacity in the splashes of blood, both dried and dripping, or in the palette of colors from a five-car pile-up? But although my neighbors didn’t understand me, they didn’t stop me. They picked up the magazines and the newspapers that my glossy-colors were displayed on and they talked animatedly at my gallery openings. And even though they didn’t support me, at least my wife did. Well, she used to.
I met Aleise in my senior year of college. She was a struggling painting major with her head in the stars, a brush in hand, and a mane of silky gold. Her world was full of imagination and creativity and sunshine and sparkle. But it was also filled with a great sadness that no one ever knew about. It didn’t stop her from laughing, though. And it was her laughter that caught my attention one night at an exhibit, as she discussed the works with her friends. Her insight was astounding and her smile was infectious. I plotted scenarios in my head rapidly, to figure out a way to talk to her, but as luck would have it, she found a way for me to talk to her that night, and all my plans went right out the window.
“I wonder whose photograph this is? Adam Szyecht? Does he go to our school?” All of her friends shook their heads without any ideas.
“Um, it’s mine. Hi, I’m Adam,” I said, nervous as all hell, my hand shaking as I stuck it out to shake hers.
“Hi,” she smiled. “I’m Aleise. Can we talk about your work?” I licked my dry lips, and nodded, taking a step towards her. I caught a whiff of her perfume, vanilla. It was intoxicating.
From that moment on, we were inseparable and I became her support as she became mine. She understood my art and didn’t try to dismiss it as “cruel.” In turn, I accepted her and found her to be perfection, although she carried sorrow in her sparkling green eyes, longing for a daughter to replace the younger sister she had recently lost to a car accident. I promised her, “Soon, my love, soon.” Our friends hardly found it surprising when we got engaged and then married a few years later. As promised, Aleise gave birth to a beautiful baby girl two years after we were married, but from that day on, Kellie became her joy. Aleise stopped painting, giving up on the fact that she didn’t want to become a commercial artist and become antagonized with all of the pressures that came with the title, therefore leaving more time for her to spend with her baby daughter, her replacement sister. We no longer had our comforting little chances at the dead of night because she was so exhausted from following around a two-year-old. And when she wasn’t asleep, she was playing with Kellie, or bathing Kellie, or begging me to take “pretty pictures” of our little girl. And I went along with her whims, taking cutesy set-ups with Kellie on the rocking horse, or Kellie dressed up as a princess, or the two of them in matching floral dresses, but my heart wasn’t in it and no one cared for the photos except for us. We were her parents, after all. Aleise slowly drew away from me; she no longer wanted me to show her the photos I was taking for work; she said they might scare Kellie and she didn’t want to leave that type of lasting impression in her little blue eyes. I pleaded with her to share her passion with me once again, to remember the way she used to help me grow with critiques and praise. But she didn’t want to hear it and scorned all of my pictures of grotesque beauty. We began arguing more and more as the years progressed, moving to two separate rooms in our apartment, with Kellie in what was once the spare guestroom. The two of them grew closer and closer with every passing day; Mother sharing the same interests and joys as the daughter. And I watched with jealousy as a teenaged-Kellie unknowingly took away what was once mine. And I watched with anger as Aleise impassively took the heart that she had once treasured, and carefully, meticulously in her carefree way, broke it. I threw myself into my work; finding tortured souls and asylum patients intriguing and all together too tempting to stay away from. I caught their expressions and their longing and their pain. It was all beauty to me.
One night, as I drove home from shooting horses at the zoo being put to sleep, I heard sirens coming up behind me. Daydreaming again about happier times, had I been speeding? I quickly pulled over, trying to think up a story, but the wailing and the bright lights speeded past me. I turned the engine back on and quickly followed the cars, loading film into my camera with one hand as I drove. Something good would be at the end of this little car chase, I could feel it. And I wasn’t mistaken, my index finger clicking away and the flash bulb blinking instantaneously as I walked around the car wreck. Alcohol seeped out from the confines of the car, but the driver was fine, just a little shaken up, and being questioned by the cops. I could hear her voice slurring, and a sloppy grin appearing on her face. I glanced her way for only a second, shaking my head. Women drivers, what are they thinking? In the passenger, there was a young girl, but her identity didn’t matter to me as I kept clicking away. I remember being told to leave the site and to stop taking photos, but I kept pushing back. The way her legs were angled and the way the blood matted hair, it was too great of an opportunity to miss. I glanced around again for the driver; perhaps I could get a shot of her being pushed into a cop car, but didn’t see her anywhere. There had been something magnetizing about her features, disheveled as they were, but the moment was here, in front of me, still tangled up in the wreck, so I ignored the feeling and went back to taking photos. Somewhere in the background, an ambulance finally arrived and the EMT’s ran over to try an extract what was left of the young girl from her car. My work here was done and I started walking back to my car, never noticing the driver, who had slipped the grasps of the police and was hiding behind a building, watching me with a sorrowful and angry gleam in her bright green eyes.
I walked in later that evening to an empty house; Aleise had told me that she was taking Kellie out for her birthday and that I hadn’t been invited. It had stung, but I was learning to take all of her comments with a grain of salt. I hadn’t realized how badly I had needed to piss since I had left the scene of the accident, so involved was I with the pictures I had taken, pictures that paraded around in my head of twisted limbs and a bloody torso. Taking a step towards the bathroom, I was a bit surprised to notice the door was ajar and a soft light was streaming through the opening. Peeking my head in, I saw that the room was all-aglow with a wash of light from a handful of candles that lined the rim of the tub. It was then I noticed a figure in the tub… Aleise? Perhaps they had gotten home early and she needed to relax after a night of dancing? She was quiet, her blonde hair went and matted, some sticking to the sides of the tub, her eyes were shut and a serene smile was on her face. Remember the scenario I described earlier? It is my beautiful wife and I can hear the light melody of the lullaby playing now. What do I do? “A beautiful photo…another Great Work of Art,” I murmur, thinking to shoot a picture as my camera makes its weighted presence known.
But then I realize that the room is entirely too quiet--she isn’t breathing and her skin looks clammy, or is it just the droplets of water that grace her fair skin? The water, I soon notice, pushing aside the visual beauty of the ripples and iridescent bubbles, has a slight pink tinge to it that is getting darker by the second. I rush over, screaming her name. No response, just that quiet peaceful smile. I grab her hands, trying to squeeze some life into them. The only response I receive now is the blood dripping down my wrists and hers, mixing with the trickles of water. No..NO…NO! This isn’t happening… it can’t be happening. What could have provoked this? Where was Kellie? Why wasn’t Kellie here?! I drop her, her limp body falling ungracefully back into the tub, water splashing down the sides. I don’t know what to do… what to do?! My mind is racing, my heart is pounding and then my childhood instincts kick in…
I raise my camera and snap a few photos. I now recognize the face beneath the matted, bloody hair on the young girl in the car wreck. I now recognize the sorrowful eyes of the driver being questioned. I miss her laugh; I miss her smile. I replace the cap on my lens and slowly walk away, tears streaming down from my eyes. A true artist…or just an artist without a heart?
What would you do if confronted with the most beautiful portrait that you’ve ever seen in your life: the model’s eyes are gently closed, her lips are posed in a serene smile, and she just seems at peace with the world? You think, “The next Mona Lisa, the next Madonna, the next Great Work of Art.” She’s as beautiful as she is exquisite; you love everything about her from her eyelashes to her ankles. You love the way the candlelight plays with the highlights in her golden hair, the way the water reflects the light back in calm, miniscule waves, and the way the droplets seem to float on the surface of her skin in a pearlescent shimmer. You drink in the warm vanilla scent from the bubbles, the sweet floral aroma of the scented candles, and the thin trace of perfume left on the clothes hanging on the door to your right. The air has a comforting wetness to it, damp steam rising from the bath and soaking the air with a powerful fairytale moment. You take it all in, your head becoming giddy with the beauty of it all. In your head, you can hear the orchestra playing its gentle lullaby, the sweet notes of the violin followed by the cello and the flute, until the weight of the camera hanging from the strap around your neck breaks into your reverie and you feel a strong compulsion to take a photograph, to capture the moment, to capture the stillness, to capture the perfection.
Once, back during the day of my impressionable youth, I was asked a question. The man had described to us a horrific scenario of a man suffering a heart attack and as we all sat staring blankly at him, confused as to the reasoning behind his logic, he asked us a question that would change the rest of my life. “If you had a camera in your hand and then saw someone having a heart attack, what would you do? Would you help him and dial 911, or would you take a picture?” The school representative had just spent the past half-hour dismissing the notion that any of us were “true artists” because we didn’t take chances, because we had morals, because we had hearts. I knew the answer he wanted so I shouted it out, “Take a picture!” The man laughed, a hearty laugh that seemed genuine and false at the same time, and smiled, nodding his head. “Yes, son, you’re exactly right! You’ll be a true artist yet!” He then spent a few minutes drawing a caricature of us watching our teacher having a heart attack with myself in the corner taking a photo with an oversized camera. He handed it to me, along with a pat on the head, and walked out of the door. I looked after him, wondering what had just happened, but I dismissed it and went back to my buddies. It was time for lunch and that day it had been Meatball Sandwich Day. I remember sticking the drawing in my locker, slamming the door shut, and following my friends down the hall. I knew it was bullshit, but the stranger’s words kept resonating in my head, etched into my memory. A true artist.
Many years passed and in that time I went to school for photography, learning every tip and trick of the trade and devouring just about every book possible written on the techniques of the subject. I wasn’t worried about the opinions of others; I took photos as I saw them. A man lying homeless on a steamy grate, an elderly couple suffering bruises and broken limbs in a car crash, drunk teenage girls teetering precariously on stiletto heels as they walked one another’s scantily clad bodies home. I took advantage of the situations, bypassing any caution tape or signs that were in my way. I became a local celebrity, the man known for getting “The Shot” because I wasn’t afraid of taking a chance; I wasn’t afraid of being looked at as heartless when I stepped over the arms of a dead junkie or stared a starving, little child in the face just to take a picture of his eyes. I’m an artist, and an artist that needs to survive. My photos don’t fall into the category of the “ethically evaluative photograph,” according to my wife’s high school photography book, “Criticizing Photographs.” I’m not trying to prove any points or start a cultural revolution. Yes, my photographs make people often gasp in shock, but it is in the way I take the picture, not the intention I have behind it. I’m not, as the book states, “trying to praise or condemn aspects of society,” yet I’m called heartless, unethical, and selfish behind my back. It isn’t what I want to do, but it pays the bills. Inside, I think of my photos as “aesthetically evaluative” works of art. Art that, according to the author Terry Barrett, is “usually of beautiful things photographed in beautiful ways.” Why is it my fault that I can find the beauty hiding beneath the grotesque? Why can’t others see the vivacity in the splashes of blood, both dried and dripping, or in the palette of colors from a five-car pile-up? But although my neighbors didn’t understand me, they didn’t stop me. They picked up the magazines and the newspapers that my glossy-colors were displayed on and they talked animatedly at my gallery openings. And even though they didn’t support me, at least my wife did. Well, she used to.
I met Aleise in my senior year of college. She was a struggling painting major with her head in the stars, a brush in hand, and a mane of silky gold. Her world was full of imagination and creativity and sunshine and sparkle. But it was also filled with a great sadness that no one ever knew about. It didn’t stop her from laughing, though. And it was her laughter that caught my attention one night at an exhibit, as she discussed the works with her friends. Her insight was astounding and her smile was infectious. I plotted scenarios in my head rapidly, to figure out a way to talk to her, but as luck would have it, she found a way for me to talk to her that night, and all my plans went right out the window.
“I wonder whose photograph this is? Adam Szyecht? Does he go to our school?” All of her friends shook their heads without any ideas.
“Um, it’s mine. Hi, I’m Adam,” I said, nervous as all hell, my hand shaking as I stuck it out to shake hers.
“Hi,” she smiled. “I’m Aleise. Can we talk about your work?” I licked my dry lips, and nodded, taking a step towards her. I caught a whiff of her perfume, vanilla. It was intoxicating.
From that moment on, we were inseparable and I became her support as she became mine. She understood my art and didn’t try to dismiss it as “cruel.” In turn, I accepted her and found her to be perfection, although she carried sorrow in her sparkling green eyes, longing for a daughter to replace the younger sister she had recently lost to a car accident. I promised her, “Soon, my love, soon.” Our friends hardly found it surprising when we got engaged and then married a few years later. As promised, Aleise gave birth to a beautiful baby girl two years after we were married, but from that day on, Kellie became her joy. Aleise stopped painting, giving up on the fact that she didn’t want to become a commercial artist and become antagonized with all of the pressures that came with the title, therefore leaving more time for her to spend with her baby daughter, her replacement sister. We no longer had our comforting little chances at the dead of night because she was so exhausted from following around a two-year-old. And when she wasn’t asleep, she was playing with Kellie, or bathing Kellie, or begging me to take “pretty pictures” of our little girl. And I went along with her whims, taking cutesy set-ups with Kellie on the rocking horse, or Kellie dressed up as a princess, or the two of them in matching floral dresses, but my heart wasn’t in it and no one cared for the photos except for us. We were her parents, after all. Aleise slowly drew away from me; she no longer wanted me to show her the photos I was taking for work; she said they might scare Kellie and she didn’t want to leave that type of lasting impression in her little blue eyes. I pleaded with her to share her passion with me once again, to remember the way she used to help me grow with critiques and praise. But she didn’t want to hear it and scorned all of my pictures of grotesque beauty. We began arguing more and more as the years progressed, moving to two separate rooms in our apartment, with Kellie in what was once the spare guestroom. The two of them grew closer and closer with every passing day; Mother sharing the same interests and joys as the daughter. And I watched with jealousy as a teenaged-Kellie unknowingly took away what was once mine. And I watched with anger as Aleise impassively took the heart that she had once treasured, and carefully, meticulously in her carefree way, broke it. I threw myself into my work; finding tortured souls and asylum patients intriguing and all together too tempting to stay away from. I caught their expressions and their longing and their pain. It was all beauty to me.
One night, as I drove home from shooting horses at the zoo being put to sleep, I heard sirens coming up behind me. Daydreaming again about happier times, had I been speeding? I quickly pulled over, trying to think up a story, but the wailing and the bright lights speeded past me. I turned the engine back on and quickly followed the cars, loading film into my camera with one hand as I drove. Something good would be at the end of this little car chase, I could feel it. And I wasn’t mistaken, my index finger clicking away and the flash bulb blinking instantaneously as I walked around the car wreck. Alcohol seeped out from the confines of the car, but the driver was fine, just a little shaken up, and being questioned by the cops. I could hear her voice slurring, and a sloppy grin appearing on her face. I glanced her way for only a second, shaking my head. Women drivers, what are they thinking? In the passenger, there was a young girl, but her identity didn’t matter to me as I kept clicking away. I remember being told to leave the site and to stop taking photos, but I kept pushing back. The way her legs were angled and the way the blood matted hair, it was too great of an opportunity to miss. I glanced around again for the driver; perhaps I could get a shot of her being pushed into a cop car, but didn’t see her anywhere. There had been something magnetizing about her features, disheveled as they were, but the moment was here, in front of me, still tangled up in the wreck, so I ignored the feeling and went back to taking photos. Somewhere in the background, an ambulance finally arrived and the EMT’s ran over to try an extract what was left of the young girl from her car. My work here was done and I started walking back to my car, never noticing the driver, who had slipped the grasps of the police and was hiding behind a building, watching me with a sorrowful and angry gleam in her bright green eyes.
I walked in later that evening to an empty house; Aleise had told me that she was taking Kellie out for her birthday and that I hadn’t been invited. It had stung, but I was learning to take all of her comments with a grain of salt. I hadn’t realized how badly I had needed to piss since I had left the scene of the accident, so involved was I with the pictures I had taken, pictures that paraded around in my head of twisted limbs and a bloody torso. Taking a step towards the bathroom, I was a bit surprised to notice the door was ajar and a soft light was streaming through the opening. Peeking my head in, I saw that the room was all-aglow with a wash of light from a handful of candles that lined the rim of the tub. It was then I noticed a figure in the tub… Aleise? Perhaps they had gotten home early and she needed to relax after a night of dancing? She was quiet, her blonde hair went and matted, some sticking to the sides of the tub, her eyes were shut and a serene smile was on her face. Remember the scenario I described earlier? It is my beautiful wife and I can hear the light melody of the lullaby playing now. What do I do? “A beautiful photo…another Great Work of Art,” I murmur, thinking to shoot a picture as my camera makes its weighted presence known.
But then I realize that the room is entirely too quiet--she isn’t breathing and her skin looks clammy, or is it just the droplets of water that grace her fair skin? The water, I soon notice, pushing aside the visual beauty of the ripples and iridescent bubbles, has a slight pink tinge to it that is getting darker by the second. I rush over, screaming her name. No response, just that quiet peaceful smile. I grab her hands, trying to squeeze some life into them. The only response I receive now is the blood dripping down my wrists and hers, mixing with the trickles of water. No..NO…NO! This isn’t happening… it can’t be happening. What could have provoked this? Where was Kellie? Why wasn’t Kellie here?! I drop her, her limp body falling ungracefully back into the tub, water splashing down the sides. I don’t know what to do… what to do?! My mind is racing, my heart is pounding and then my childhood instincts kick in…
I raise my camera and snap a few photos. I now recognize the face beneath the matted, bloody hair on the young girl in the car wreck. I now recognize the sorrowful eyes of the driver being questioned. I miss her laugh; I miss her smile. I replace the cap on my lens and slowly walk away, tears streaming down from my eyes. A true artist…or just an artist without a heart?