CORRESPONDENCES
Every Saturday from March 4–May 27, 2023, I asked a few writers to find “correspondences” between 3 photographs from the archive, chosen without constraint on style or genre, and to write short commentaries on their choice. The goal was to open up Tender Photo’s editorial and curatorial process to an engaged group of readers, broadening the diversity of responses to the varied work featured so far.
Like a Viking with an Unyielding Gaze
In these busy times with the volatility of Social Media, it is nice to receive a newsletter that you can read and review at your own time of choice. I find that this also adds depth to the photos you are looking at. Instead of scrolling along photos, occasionally liking them and sometimes reading the comments, you give
I Have Looked at This Scene Several Times
I have looked at this scene several times: two people walking nonchalantly along the beach under the midday sun, prolonging their conversation until they have nothing more to say, until the endless coastline gets the better of their desire not to leave each other. One of them is holding a bottle of water, which will help to endure the heat and the other…
The Sound of the Cosmos
It’s a hot-sticky afternoon. It smells of boring Tuesdays. Somewhere or other, a presenter drones on a television set. At a back porch, you find a portion of the floor shaded in by a stout shadow. Casting away the feeble plastic chair, you relax onto the floor. The frigid surface holds you down, as though by some gravitational incantation: your body is …
They Are Encircled by the Same Beam
In the market, a man’s arm is stretched wide, and his left-hand holds a book that seems to be a bible. He is decked in a blue robe in the manner of a clergyman; his closed eyes face the skies and his mouth is open in the manner of one shouting prayers to heaven. Around him, a crowd of women bows in prayer. But in the vast background, a different world o…
Good Photographs Demand To Be Looked at Twice
When I was in my adolescence, an old woman in the neighbouring village started telling incoherent and farfetched stories, and one of them was about people who lived under water. The men in her stories stood on the floor of the ocean and held all of the mass of the ocean water above their heads. Her stories had striking detail. Looking at the images of t…
Loving a Person Is Taking Care of Them
In the photograph, we see four windows, the door—I assume one exists—is out of sight. I like to think the person on the move is young, and entered through the carved hole in the wall. I am reminded that as it is in life, it is in art: you do not need to enter through the expected routes, you can create yours. Especially if you are young.
Our Time Together Cannot Be Wasted on Things That Do Not Matter
Our two older sisters, Maria and Gimbia, are long gone. Me and your mother are the only ones left. As we get older, our time together cannot be wasted on things that do not matter, her selfishness included. She has been this way since we were girls. She is not a bad person. If anything, I'm the one who has a reputation for being stingy with money. Once …
Nostalgia is a Kind of Mercy
Here is a deserted room. Except it is more than that. Reimagine how people must have occupied the six chairs in the room before the dust gathered and the cobwebs took form. The room is preserved in new memories in the minds of new viewers like you and me. What did the room look like before now? Was it a happy one? Did thunderous laughter …
The Lessons
“How do you preserve a photo that’s all you have left?” None of them answers the widow’s question. Instead, they shove demands into her mouth until she swallows their words as though they’ve belonged to her all along.