Father and son

And here we have my accepted submission to this semester's Charter and the partner piece to "Off-balance," my last photo post. Content-wise, it is more of the same: a chuckle at how out of place these suburban types look at a downtown skatepark, but I find the photo's structure far more interesting here. It was simpler in the other, just a single, dominant subject, but a bit more is going on this time around. The two subjects, a father and son, are sitting in near identical positions on one of the park's walls, both looking towards the right, but a sharp division, several times repeated, separates them. The line of graffiti breaks between them, two poles stand in the middle and the background becomes considerably darker on the son's side. The presence of the convertible Beetle, half-hidden by the wall, gives a little more weight to the father's side, too. Still, there is a general similarity in the fore- and backgrounds that delivers a sense of unity that transcends these differences.

It is unfortunate then that I have no clue what this all leads to. There is a lot going on and I feel there must be some meaning that lies beneath it all, but I do not see it. I could suggest that the two are the same person. The son is the father a few decades younger, and the son will eventually grow into an adult and become just like his father. The father looks towards his past, the son towards his future and they find it in the same place, but that all sounds awfully pretentious. Ultimately, I guess this all just feeds into my friend Emmett's understanding that the artist is hardly ever aware of all that they put into their work, but that just raises the question "How much is a snapshot art?" art with me, a question I am not now prepared to answer.

If you have the time, it is worth kicking around and checking out the other submissions to Reflection. Personally, I recommend Anthony DeLorenzo's "Untitled," Martha Buttry's "Love Song to the Argentine Mullet," Sabrina Mauritz's "On my way to lunch," and Spencer Allison's "The Grieving Process."