I published an early version of this photo two months ago for Weekend Reflections. After many hours working on additional cleaning and subtle tonality improvements, I made a print that hangs on the wall of my newly painted room. I invite you to view the improved digital version.

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This image speaks to me, pulls me in and won’t let me go. And I almost gave up because of the poor condition of the negative. I wanted to title this “Fascination” because of the young boy in the foreground. His expression, the way he leans forward… What was he seeing? What fascinated him? I can’t remember.
His older brother (I’m assuming here) seems fearful. He leans back holding on to the roll (for reassurance?).
And the mother (another assumption) sits quietly in the background eating her meal.
The relationships among the three people hold together with visible emotions and are reinforced by the strong diagonal and the play of light and shadows.
I worked the dark tones in the background so they held just enough detail. The light tones of the young boy also hold detail without blowing the highlights. I spent some time burning and dodging the two boy’s faces to smooth out some ugly tones in the first version.
Ansel Adams knew what he was talking about when he said: “The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” The score for this performance is a poorly processed, scratched, 44 year old negative. But that score contained everything I needed to pull off what I consider to be my best image from my year in Vietnam and certainly one of the best images I’ve ever made. I’m satisfied now.
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