Lately I have been thinking a lot about my dad, his work as an artist, about his photos and how it makes me see the world. As a photographer he explained to me many things about a good composition, lighting and balance of saturation. The smell of developer, the trays of swimming images back and forth immersed under the red darkness, when i was a child. the memories of smell of oil paint and Gamsol.
When we were in a bus or a taxi in Bogota, Colombia; I remember he had his camera in his lap when he pointed out something magical happening. He pointed out the window to a little indigenous girl playing with a kitten, playing with a string on the floor, not far from her you can see the mother with a smaller child and a newborn in her arms asking for money in the busy street. That magical moment of bliss of the girl playing with the kitten was the moment we both captured in our minds. We respect indigenous people specially my father since he lived with them for months and they were his guides in his many trips across Colombia. The moment of frustration could have been a moment of despair; knowing how indigenous women were forced to the big city lives pushed them into more poverty and miserable lives. But That girl, and that snap shot was the poetic irony of it all; That only trained eyes can see in the midst of chaos. That was the lesson he gave me. I have many of those moments that my eyes have captured but I also remember what he told me about the beauty in the simple things. That everything if portrayed at one’s liking can be beautiful. Today my breakfast pushed me to encounter a layer buried in the pain of my dad’s death. The simple beauty of the mundane. happy breakfast.
