The more Polaroids you take, the more trained your eye becomes at seeing scenes that would probably *pop* on this temperamental medium. That’s what first drew me to this shot of folklifers watching a presentation on vogue dancing—bright solids tightly packed into the center of an under-lit scene.
But since taking the shot, all types of readings of defiance and resistance started floating off the surface for me, beyond the lived circumstances of that moment.
All photographs are mysterious—or, at least, that’s what I read in a book on photography I found on the street last night. How that mystery is given sense and story—how that “enigma” is “revealed”—in Michael Ashkin’s words, “really is a question of poetics.”
I must have been riding a high that day because I did a thing I never do and walked up to this couple and said: “I’m sorry to intrude but you two look so good together.”
They were incredibly sweet and this energy you see in the photo was exactly the energy I saw before my intrusion. But as soon as I hit the shutter I became extremely aware of my own presence in the scene and felt a twang of guilt for taking the photo—literally, taking this photo away with me. So in the lag between the polaroid popping out and my getting up from my crouch, I crossed my fingers and said “I hope it comes out.” They smiled and I said “thank you,” then shyly melted back into the crowd feeling an odd mix of joy and embarrassment.
So if anyone recognizes these two, please tell them that I want a do-over. I want to gift them back the moment I stole. To become the kind of photographer who gives away his photos seems a worthwhile aspiration. Also: “Hi, my name is Jad. What are yours?”