Apr 13, 2024
two minds
by matt
When I took this, the couple dancing were lost in their moment. They were gliding forwards and backwards, left and right, without a care in the world. Along with several others, I watched them and I smiled. I contemplated taking a photo but it didn’t feel right initially. It didn’t feel right because several other people were photographing them with their phones or perhaps filming them in 4K video, and I didn’t want to be ‘one of them’. I just wanted a simple black and white shot of the man and woman in their moment to celebrate them and to portray a beautiful moment on the street in Leeds that sunny Saturday afternoon. When I took the shot, I was convinced I had captured just that. I was excited about seeing the result. When I processed the negative and scanned it months later, I was a little dismayed to see what looked like shock and alarm on the woman’s face. She seems to look at me in horror – almost as if I’m taking something away from them, or denying them something, or intruding. It really wasn’t like that when I took the photo. I actually felt like they were enjoying the attention and limelight that fell upon them amongst the endearing smiles, and this gave me confidence that I was doing the right thing (or at least not the wrong thing) by photographing them. I felt bad when I saw the result. A photo is a snapshot in time and while often that snapshot is indicative of what may have been going on at that time, quite often there is a backstory or side-channel which is not so visible. Only I and others standing here at this time knew what it was like, and I’m in two minds whether this was a photo I’d post, or not.