Three Together

Photographs by Neo Baepi, Keren Lasme, Namafu Amutse, Blessing Atas, and Jono Terry, previously featured on Tender Photo.

“Altar Boys,” Photograph by Neo Baepi

“Beneath Our Skin Lies the Sun,” by Keren Lasme

“Soft,” by Namafu Amutse

“The Egrets,” by Blessing Atas

“Boys at Borrow Street,” by Jono Terry

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By only a small sleight of composition, if the lens had been widened to the right, Neo Baepi might have pictured more than three altar boys. But the choice of just those three is sublime, given how the unformed boys are inclined towards the camera in varying degrees. In their varied poses, these three express what the mood of teenage altar boys might be summed into, wavering like a flicker of naked fire.

A threefold mood, as in Keren Lasme’s picture. The women are placed in front of a chiffon backdrop: one face looks ahead, and her gaze, framed by a straightened head, bears, to some extent, the intensity of a dare. But to describe it as “a dare” simplifies what is exchanged when we look at her. The character of the image can be found in its symmetry, how the heads rise in the manner of small hills, each similar in size to the other.

Or similar, if not in size, by the fact of kinship. The half-naked boys in the photograph by Namafu Amutse are her brothers, pictured that way on a chilly Sunday afternoon on a shore in Swakopmund, Namibia. The idea for her, it seems, is to make something of that affinity, a gesture of affection: “Since the beginning of my photography journey, my subjects have mainly been my siblings and in many ways it allows me the opportunity to show them how it is I see them and how it is I hope they see themselves,” she writes.

If Amutse’s siblings express affinity through play, the photograph by Blessing Atas expresses something even more fluid, a trio of feet pictured mid-movement. As this is a dance, notice the trace of pleasure in the incline of their lower bodies. Anything noted as a trace is momentary, and anything momentary might recur. Such as the memory of men seeing each other after a long absence—the burst of glee, the lift of spirit.

All that rhythm collects into a sense of collective repose in Jono Terry’s photograph. It’s a miracle of composition: there are three bodies, facing a house with three sections. Between the boys and the house there is a pool, and a stretch of low steps. The boys who face the pool hold their bodies with a relaxation that points either to fatigue or contemplation. Better the latter. ••••

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This is the #9 edition of CONCORDANCE, a series of micro-essays in response to sequences of photographs previously featured on the newsletter. These notes, inspired by CORRESPONDENCES, points to affinities in style, mood, or theme between the tendered photos. The series will end next week.

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