I have no idea what’s going on in this photograph. I had parked myself in the southwest corner of Toronto’s Dundas Square, framing a shot and watching as people moved through the frame. It’s a bit like setting a trap and waiting to see what wildlife I can capture. Eventually, these two men walked through my frame and I shot a burst of about 10 stills.
Even though I was within spitting distance of the pair, I have no idea what was passing between the two of them. The guy to the left is wearing a shirt decorated in cannabis leaves. He holds a lighter in his left hand and a cigarette in his right hand. He’s saying something to the guy on the right, waving his left arm as if he’s trying to get the other man’s attention. It’s impossible to hear what he’s saying because there is loud music blaring nearby and because the fountains are splashing water.
The guy on the right is eating a hot dog and continues to walk, either not hearing or deliberately ignoring the man on the left. Is the man on the left trying to sell him something? Drugs, maybe? Is he uttering a racial slur? There’s no way to know simply by staring at the photograph.
I like it when my photographs defy my expectations for them as documentation or evidence. I like them best when they prove to be documentation of nothing. Or documentation of ambiguity. At most, they are evidence of an unknowability at the heart of human experience. We really don’t know what’s going on in any of it.
