Taken out of Context by Laura Efron

I can tell this one’s going to be good. I just have to wait until she reaches the mailbox. But even watching her bike’s slow ascent to my lamppost hiding place, I know this shot will turn out well. I hold the camera up firmly to my eye, watching the small figure gradually expand in the view window. The two spots of peach color on the handlebars’ thin black line transform into white, clenched knuckles. The oversized helmet that has slid over her right ear suddenly sprouts tendrils of disheveled brown curls. I make myself wait a second longer—breath caught as the moment of action approaches—and just before she swerves left and out of view, I snap the shutter open.

That one may have been the best I’ve taken all week, I think—letting the air finally release from my throat. A good close-up of someone—so that their eyes, mouth, and body fill the frame— is the kind of photo I’ve been trying to get lately. The girl’s determined little face hovers back into my vision. She might even be good enough to put in Friday’s show—if I can develop her in class this week. So far for the D.S. High student exhibit I only have the street corner snapshots from a couple months ago—my cold, gray suit-men and flowy-clothed black women. For a good half year I took almost all my photos downtown. Just like dad back when we lived in Chile and he still shot, I wanted to find the busiest parts of the city, and with the camera’s magic, translate them into a harmonious whole. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Yeah- I trapped moments—made them static, papers I could hold in my hands, but that didn’t mean I made them any more manageable. The chaos of the city I walked through every day just became chaos in two dimensions, gleaming out at me with the same disordered sidewalks and unfamiliar faces. It was like my experience of reading when the family first arrived here; at first I was so happy to see words that sat still, only to realize that written English was just as impossible as the gibberish flying all around me. It was only a month or so ago that I discovered the delight of singular portraits. Getting up close and cutting out the confusion of context became a sort of craving. Yeah—the entire city was too much. But I could still try to get something more specific. I turned to individual people.

I begin to tuck my camera back into its case, stepping out from my camouflaged spot on the street corner, and look up to see the little girl swooping back around on her bike. She calls out to me from the other end of the street.

“Hey lady! Are you a photographer?” Her helmet still lops over to the side as she glides up close, feet dragging her to a halt. I can tell by the rise in her voice that she hopes I am.

“I’d like to be,” I respond, lamely. Little kids, maybe cause of the jerks I endured in grade school here, always turn me into a bit of an idiot—as if I’m not awkward enough already. “I hope you don’t mind I just took your picture.”

“Oh no,” she says, rocking the bike forwards and backward over her feet. “But are you going to put it up somewhere?” The rise in her voice could be either excitement or anxiety, and I tell her I’m not sure, yet—but that probably, someday, I would.

“Well that’s fine,” she answers matter-of-factly, bringing herself to a halt mid-sway. “I was just wondering if I should pay you or not.”

I stare at her, confused for a moment, before realizing what she means, and then tell her not to worry. “No, no,” I laugh. “It’s not like that. I should be thanking you for being my model.” I give her what I hope is a warm grin, and tell her I’d better get home before the sun goes down. Heading back down the hill towards the city’s center, I hear her singsong “goodbye” called out from behind, and smile amusedly to myself.

Moments like these were one of the main reasons I began carrying a camera in the first place. Before discovering my father’s old manual about a year ago, walking down this city’s streets had been a sort of debutante parade—with gross old men inviting me home to their “love nests” or telling me I was in their dreams at night. I guess even before high school, though, and the sleazy men development, I had still always found this city to be miserable and unforgiving. Even as a little girl—when the family had first picked up our seven years (all—in my case) of Chilean life and followed dad to his important new job back in “America” (a word my mother said often in those days, and with special emphasis on the round “r” of a proper, American accent) —I’d always felt like a sort of spectacle here. At school I was the new girl who spoke nonsense and made drawings the other kids would grab and hold up to the teacher… “Look!” they’d shout, “Nicole did another weird one.” Then they’d giggle and run back to their seats.

It really wasn’t until last year, after an especially embarrassing encounter on a side street near our house, that I discovered my dad’s camera, and found a way of existing here I could actually stand. I was really upset that afternoon. I’d come home and gone into the kitchen, looking for someone to complain to about the sleazy-man-who-could-be-my-father-he-was-so-old who’d just made a shitty day shittier. But without even turning from the chicken strips she was slicing, my mother called out to me, “Oh honey—that just means you’re blossoming. They’re just letting you know what a fine young lady you’re becoming.”

It was the first time I’d heard the words, “young lady” and “blossoming” spoken in relation to myself, and the sound of it sent a wave of nausea through my stomach. I managed to yell back at her, sputtering something about her being ridiculous and dumb, and stormed upstairs to the attic, ignoring the muttered, there-there noises that followed me out the kitchen door. It was upstairs, in the “back there” corner of photos and scrapbooks I used to scour so often, that I found the camera, tucked behind a basket of my mother’s old knitting supplies.

The next day, with dad’s permission, I brought it with me when I went out. Walking to and from school that day, in place of leering stares or skeptical side-glances, I got respectful nods and self-conscious smiles. Elderly women tossed me approving words, middle-aged (would be) sleazebags gave me anxious looks, and scurrying little kids stopped, eyes huge and excited, to ask me whether I would please, pretty please take their picture. Suddenly I was no longer the “young, blossoming girl” to be stared at or avoided in the street, but a “person who sees you.” Passers-by noticed the camera and balked. They saw my thirty-millimeter aperture and knew I meant business. I carried it with me every day that week—and on Saturday, used my saved up cash to buy film—black and white, ASA 400—on my father’s recommendation. The camera, and its magical aura, have been on my hip ever since.

*

On Monday and Wednesday I have a hard time finding time to develop during class. Mr. Richardson seems crankier than usual—probably cause he’s anxious about the show—and I don’t try asking about the dark room. By Thursday, though, I realize during class or after school is my last chance, so I ask him to keep the lab door unlocked for me after school. At 2:00, when everyone swarms out D. S. High’s doors in a rush to freedom, I slip into the eerie red light of my own personal refuge. I love having the lab to myself, working alone, enshrouded in the mysterious, chemical-filled atmosphere, and watching as the ever changing confusion of “out there” slowly emerges as frozen smiles and ponytails on my 4 by 6 and 6 by 8 inch paper.

I carefully slide the negative of the girl into the enlarger’s opening, and a murky mixture of grays appears on the table below. I begin the process of testing exposure times, repeating the motions again and again, until I find the combination of times I think will work best. Then, always a little nervous at this climactic moment, I place the shiny, new, full sized piece of paper on the marked spots under the enlarger. Holding my breath as I switch the lamp on and off, I bring the piece over to the first bin of liquid, and begin rocking it back and forth. I stand transfixed before the undulating solution, and watch as streaks of gray begin to creep over where the little girl’s face will be.

My father only let me go to the dark room once with him when I was a little girl. The university where he taught allowed him free access every weekend, but my mother said the fumes were bad for children’s lungs, and I think my dad was afraid I’d get bored and mess up his concentration. Still—there was that one time he brought me with him—when he developed the photos that are still my favorites—the ones I used to escape to in the attic.

Sitting in the beat up armchair next to the “Chile” pile in the attic, I used to flip through those album’s pages, letting them take me back to the dusty Valparaiso streets, where I’d play hide and seek with Lucho, the stray dog in our neighborhood, and dance by the saxophone man who played on my mother and my route to the grocery store. More than anything, though, they’d bring me back to the afternoon I sat on the wooden chair at my dad’s side as he methodically developed photo after photo. It was the week I had outdone myself in regular mischief, cutting all my hair off with the kitchen scissors and insisting that everyone—including the neighbors—call me by my new name, Max— the crime that caused a look of horror and tearful lecture from my usually calm, smiling mother.

As I sat on my wooden chair, trying to be still and well behaved while my father shifted between counters under the soft, red lights, he eventually broke the silence with his deep, crackly voice. “Honey,” he said softly, not looking up from the rocking liquid in front of him. “I want you to know that nothing will ever change you from being my beautiful little girl. Don’t ever let anyone make you forget that, okay?”

It was a tone I’d never heard from my father’s usually teasing voice, and the tenderness of it surprised me so much I don’t think I answered. He looked up at me from his swaying photograph and bin, and gave me a small smile. It was the scene I would inevitably arrive at in my mind, whenever I sat down to browse through the old photo albums, the scene I replayed over and over in my mind, until gradually I realized my father’s soothing words increasingly came to me not in their original, lyrical form, but in the mechanical staccato of English. For weeks, I would arrive at the dim red glow of his profile, pause it at the climactic moment when he spoke, and try to piece together what the real words had actually been… “Quiero que sepas?” or was it “Tu siempre vas a ser..?”—But somehow the comforting cadences of my father’s Spanish sounded alien to me, exotic amidst the ramble of English now inhabiting my mind. I didn’t want to discover that all I had known and lived now called back to me in this new, ungenerous language… discover that Valparaiso, and Max, and home were now permanently gone, buried under thick layers of Atlanta words and smiles. Soon I just stopped going to the attic. I already had my dad’s camera at that point anyways.

In front of me the little girl’s figure has taken shape. Her angular arms and hunched-over head peer up at me from under the red gleam of liquid, and I carefully lift the photo up and move it through the remaining solutions. The triangle of her torso and outline of her head seem to be what I wanted, but I wait the ten more minutes of swishing before flipping on the overhead light to see for real. Looking back up at me from below the silky surface is the face and figure of an intense-eyed child. The lines of her arms and dramatic horizon in the distance all lead my eye inward, where the girl’s bit lip and squinted eyes show an expression of determination I rarely see on others’ faces—an expression I’m sure Max used to have on her escapades around Valparaiso— an expression I wish I could wear as this stupid Atlanta world incessantly presses forward. Yes! I say out loud. It’s the photo I’ve been trying to get forever. I pull it out of the solution and hang it to dry on the line. It will be ready by tomorrow. I will put it up with the others.

*

At the show the next day I don’t know whether it’s because it’s next to all the other photos, or just cause I’m seeing it for a second time, but on the exhibit wall, I swear my little girl looks less fierce. Standing next to my mother and father who mingle with a neighborhood couple, I stare at the face that just yesterday leaned out at me in intense determination. Next to the busier street scene pieces—or maybe it’s more from the immense white wall behind her— her inclined head and bitten lower lip just seem to make her look weaker. She still dominates the frame, but is almost swallowed up in the wider, white sea behind her.

To my left, my mother lets out a loud, high-pitched laugh, while my father continues with his own conversation. “Well actually,” I hear him say. “Nicole just started taking photos this past year. She found my old camera and just started going at it.” I take a few steps to the right, trying to avoid hearing small talk about myself. I wander through the other student’s work—digital images, paintings, ceramics, even some woodcarvings. But when I return to where my parents stand, the same overwhelmed, little girl awaits on the wall.

“Nicole,” my father says, stepping back from a photograph he had been looking at. “You do such a nice job with composition. Like that one there,” he points at the little girl. “You catch her in such a moment of desperation… huh?” He pats my shoulder, smiling, and I manage a weak grin back.

“Hey dad,” I say after the appropriate amount of seconds has passed. “Could you let mom know I’m going to walk home? I kind of want some air…. and thought I might shoot before it gets dark.” It may not be true—I think— but I do need to get out of here.

He laughs and tells me to go ahead, calling me the next “Alfred Stieglitz,” and shoos me out the door.

*

Outside, the sun is already going down. The city’s horizon line hovers in the pale purple it turns right before sunset. I walk along the main streets, holding my backpack and camera case in closely, and come to a small park with two benches that face a swing set and slide. Not really thinking, I sit down. The weight of the exhibit’s crowded atmosphere—and the disappointment from my father’s final comment—sit heavily in my chest. I begin to recall the change in the little girl photograph again, but return to the present at the sound of little kids’ excited shouts coming from my right.

“Come on!” one voice calls. “I know there’s a hole over here! I made it myself!” A crew of five or six little boys runs out from behind where the slide is. In a scurry of legs and arms, they rush towards the bench where I’m sitting and stop short a few feet to the right. They seem to be a range of ages—the littlest guy looking about 6 or so, and the oldest, leader boy, about 10. This boy holds a bucket in his hand, and leans over a hole in the ground as he speaks again.

“See?” he shouts, slightly out of breath. “It’s just deep enough. Now we’ve gotta go get some dirt to put on top.” He places his bucket on the ground, and inside I can see the figure of what seems to be a dead bird.

“Wait!” one of the smaller boys says. “We should make sure the lady doesn’t mind.” All of the faces turn towards me, and the oldest boy asks if it bothers me that they bury the dead bird in a hole that’s so close.

“No! No…” I answer, surprised, and watch in silent amazement as they then run off in all directions, gathering sand and dirt to pour into their grave. Some run off in pairs, cupping their hands together to form even larger bowls for the sand. Some get distracted from their work, and begin chasing one another through the playground, laughing and panting, falling and rolling. Another boy runs off, out of view, and returns a minute later with a bunch of pink blossoms in his fist. They move with the ease of childhood agility, a grace that I must have had at some point in my life, too—maybe back in that life. After a few minutes the oldest boy again calls them back, and together, they drop the bird’s body into the hole and begin pouring the dirt. Their faces are intent as they concentrate. An older boy comes forward with a small, flat rock, and places it over the spot, christening it the bird’s new gravestone. The other boy steps forward and showers the pink blossoms down. And a third boy, one who had gotten distracted by his game of tag, then leans in to stick a small cross—of two branches tied with string—next to the stone.

“There…” says the oldest boy. “Three in one day.” They all step back to admire their work. Only a few of them glance up at me with shy smiles. “Hey!” the boy suddenly shouts again, as if with a new idea. “My brother told me there was a dead cat over by the Fuller’s. I bet if we hurry we can get it before dark.”

With that, the posse of kids rises and runs back behind the slide in a single motion. One last little guy straggles behind, pausing to rearrange the flower blossoms before giving up and sprinting off behind the others. Even after they are out of sight, I hear their shouts and laughter calling back from the next block. I sit for a moment longer, breathing into the new stillness, and look down at the pretty little grave a few feet away. They found the bird and buried it, then left and went on their way. Slowly, I get to my feet and turn back towards the street. The pale purple along the skyline has become a blazing pink. I pick my camera case up from the bench. I’d better get home.

Walking back to the sidewalk, to the main street that will lead to my house, I pause on the curb and turn my head back. The faint echoes of the little boys’ shouts still resound from a distance. Behind me, the small grave grows indistinct in the fading light. Soon it will disappear completely, I think. Buried under the oncoming night. For a moment I worry that maybe I should have tried to give myself something to hold onto—to remember those little boys by. But sighing loudly, I recall the original look of determination on my little girl’s face. No—I think. Let it rest in peace. I swing the camera up higher on my shoulder and turn back to the street. I try to imagine all the future photos I may take, and with a small smile, continue to walk home.