You don\u2019t trust the guy with the camera.\u00c2\u00a0 The angle of his head.\u00c2\u00a0 The way he leers.\u00c2\u00a0 The way he holds his camera like a pet vulture.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s tall, thin, long-armed, and all in black.\u00c2\u00a0 The camera, not a new-fangled digital thing, has too long a lens, the glass of it like a compound eye, all-seeing, through cloth and brick and into the bones and breath of you.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t trust him, and you\u2019re not alone.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u2019s a busy city street, crowded, anxious, fast-paced and high-tension, while the people walking it are a mix of working men, schoolteachers, overweight middle management exiles, fashion models, rock stars, athletes, artists, freaks, madmen, femme fatales, entrepreneurs, poets, bakers, bookkeepers, thugs, politicians, landlords, thieves, young mothers, lost souls, patrons, mistresses, clock-watchers, and students.\u00c2\u00a0 Not a single one of them stops to speak with the guy with the camera.\u00c2\u00a0 He parts the pedestrian flow like a rock in the river.\u00c2\u00a0 They look away.\u00c2\u00a0 They hush their conversations.\u00c2\u00a0 They hold their breath.<\/p>\n
You, and you alone, stand in the caf\u00c3\u00a9 doorway across the street, sipping your chocolate, comfortable in the shade an oversized red awning provides, and you watch.\u00c2\u00a0 Your mobile phone is ready, just in case.\u00c2\u00a0 You\u2019ve got a quick knife, too, tucked away, something you\u2019d never thought might be necessary.\u00c2\u00a0 That\u2019s the problem with precaution, sometimes; they become important, even integral.<\/p>\n
So you watch, pretending you\u2019re thinking wistful thoughts, all the while wondering which of these marvelous citizens around you will play victim for the guy with the camera.\u00c2\u00a0 Obviously, no one will stop.\u00c2\u00a0 The guys says nothing, approaches no one, makes no suggestions or proposals.<\/p>\n
But quite suddenly, while no one but you is aware, the guy lifts his camera, the eye focuses on some poor soul twenty yards away.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u2019s like a gun.\u00c2\u00a0 Pointed.\u00c2\u00a0 Exact.\u00c2\u00a0 He hesitates briefly, adjusts the focus ring, or the aperture, and then triggers the shutter.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s quiet.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u2019s old, sounds like cameras used to sound, like it\u2019s real, like it\u2019s a 1980s runway or red carpet.\u00c2\u00a0 Here, this way, could you pose just a moment?<\/p>\n
She can\u2019t.\u00c2\u00a0 She\u2019s gone.\u00c2\u00a0 Whoever she was, whatever her intention, she\u2019s no longer on the street.\u00c2\u00a0 Whisked away.\u00c2\u00a0 Captured, trapped, bagged and tagged.\u00c2\u00a0 The guy with the camera grins as he advances the film.\u00c2\u00a0 You sip your chocolate and wonder, quiet briefly, if there\u2019s anything you can do about it.<\/p>\n
You sip your chocolate, and soon you doubt the evidence of your eyes.\u00c2\u00a0 Tricksy little things, those eyes.\u00c2\u00a0 A shift of shadow, an errant blink, a lack of precision.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t trust the guy with the camera.\u00c2\u00a0 You\u2019re not alone.\u00c2\u00a0 And you almost don\u2019t believe he\u2019s done anything.\u00c2\u00a0 So the next day, sipping your chocolate, this time sitting at the caf\u00c3\u00a9 and reading a magazine, one of the many with which you\u2019ve fallen behind, you look up when the guy with the camera steps between you and the sun.\u00c2\u00a0 The sudden shade is cool.<\/p>\n
Up close, the guy with the camera is roughly shaved, a day or two out.\u00c2\u00a0 There\u2019s no color in his narrow eyes.\u00c2\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t stink, but you feel like he should.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u2019s got a manila envelope.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u2019s already reaching in, fishing out three black and white prints.\u00c2\u00a0 He lays them each on the table before you.<\/p>\n
One is the girl.<\/p>\n
The other two are also women, both older, one matronly and exquisite and expensive, the other harried and just on the edgy side of sloppy.\u00c2\u00a0 The guy with the camera taps his fingernail at the top of the prints.\u00c2\u00a0 Says, \u201cWhich do you want?\u201d\u00c2\u00a0 His voice is a lot softer than you expect, but still gruff, still tinted by something inhuman or inhumane.<\/p>\n
Do you buy?\u00c2\u00a0 Is it the print, or the soul, that you\u2019d get for your money?\u00c2\u00a0 He\u2019s asking an exorbitant price, even for the city, and he expects you to pay.\u00c2\u00a0 He expects you to take one of these women home, put them in a frame, hang them on a wall.\u00c2\u00a0 You can\u2019t trust the guy with the camera.\u00c2\u00a0 You can\u2019t buy his prints.\u00c2\u00a0 You don\u2019t know how long she\u2019ll stay in there, or what will be left when she finally climbs out.\u00c2\u00a0 She might be something other than human, less than whole, indiscreet, indistinct.\u00c2\u00a0 Fractured by the negatives, by the processing chemicals.<\/p>\n
You also know, should you not pay for one of the prints, he\u2019ll catch you unawares one afternoon, that too-long lens aimed, poised, and he\u2019ll pull the trigger.\u00c2\u00a0 How much will he charge the next person for your photograph?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You don\u2019t trust the guy with the camera.\u00c2\u00a0 The angle of his head.\u00c2\u00a0 The way he leers.\u00c2\u00a0 The way he holds his camera like a […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,6,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}