01-740000-14-31-ANN
Who is this person? in this picture?
Did he know then that looking at himself in the mirror he would also be looking at me now?
I don’t really know what he was thinking about at that very 1/60th of a second, as much as he had no idea that I would be looking at and writing about him circa 34 years later.
We have so much in common, same name, same birth moment, same parents, but are we the same person?
How much of him is left in me now? How much of him would laugh at me now and misunderstand me?
Would he be self conscious to be seen with me? Could he be my friend?
How would I treat him now?
Would I be more tolerant of his youth knowing who he is, than I am sometimes of the youthfulness of others?
I’ve looked at him a lot before and thought I knew who he is, or rather I thought I knew all I needed to know about him, or rather I never thought of asking any questions because after all, I was there, I saw it happen.
But I am someone else somewhere else now, and I am beginning to realize that maybe I have a lot to ask him, even to tell him,
but on second thought, even if I could, I think it’s better that I don’t.
I think I am happy to let him become me.
I took this self-portrait of him for his first photo assignment in one of the first photography classes to be offered in the United States as a High School art class, back in 1973. He knew right away that I simply love photography. The teacher was Agnes Fromer. Looking back, I have since realized that Agnes Fromer had an incredibly powerful effect and influence on him.
Having recently moved to the US from Lebanon, he was fascinated by the New World, my new world, and with everything American. He even loved Nixon because he didn’t know any better, and it was a photograph of Nixon that hung at the embassy where he got his citizenship papers. He grew up to be me, and me don’t love Nixon, because to be American, is to learn, to analyze, to be free to decide and to be free to speak and act against what is not right. We are all fundamentally equipped with the ability and conscience to know and feel what is not right, but alas we don't always have the courage to do so.
For a few hours a week, Agnes Fromer was about learning and discovering, about photography and art, and about what was right. She held class in a circle, which was totally new and remarkable to him. One day, she began class by recounting some mundane events of her morning, in which her daughter Lisa had realized that she had left something in the car just as her mom was pulling out of the driveway to go to “work”, and was running down the street behind the car. In total candor he asked, “Ms. Fromer, where do you work?”
Such was her lightness of being a teacher that it didn’t seem to him that her being there was any work at all. I am so happy to say that he has gotten to the point in his life when I also don’t feel that my work is any work at all.
Annandale, Virginia -1973
(written November 18, 2006)
