So what if I walk a little quicker these last four blocks to campus? Sue me; I’m human.
Although once I’m there, I am faced with the reality that it’d be incredibly awkward for me to just show up at his office demanding attention for no reason. So I have to actually do something with myself, and of course there’s no class on weekends.
I end up in one of the computer labs, uploading my photos from last night to Lightroom and sorting through them. Most of them are kind of shit, but that’s standard. Digital photography has some upsides over film, and one of them is that you can take a million pictures of a scene that is constantly in flux. You aren’t beholden to the number of film cartridges you have on hand—you don’t have to try to freeze time, to capture a moment perfectly in as few slides as possible.
It’s pretty easy to rule out the bad photos and get to the good stuff. But even then, I usually have way more options than I actually need. It becomes a matter of looking more closely at the scene, especially the exposure and focus. Some things, like crop and even lighting, to a degree, can be fixed in editing. Other things are unchangeable: Either the distribution of figures to negative space is good or it isn’t. Either the exposure is good or it’s hopeless, the light having burned away any data you might have recovered in post.
These particular photos turned out better than I expected. Last night felt like a fever dream at times, like I was existing in some liminal space between the past and the present. But onscreen, it’s easier to see those moments as what they are. I’m not afraid of colors and shapes in a photograph. I’m an artist. This is what I love more than anything in the world.
As I fiddle with my favorite photos, I find myself wondering what Michal is doing today. It’s still Shabbos but late enough that she might be home from shul by now. I find it hard to envision her life outside of what I’ve seen of it so far, both last night and at school. I try to picture her curled up in an armchair, reading a book while her wife and kids play on the floor. But even that simple scene is impossible to visualize. I keep catching myself imposing relics of my own experience onto hers, putting her into a wig instead of a tichel, hanging a portrait of the Rebbe on her wall.
Through my camera’s lens, she is luminous.
“Are these from last night?” a voice says from behind me.
Heat flushes the nape of my neck before I turn to meet Wyatt’s gaze. He’s leaning against the doorframe, cup of La Colombe in hand. His hair is sticking up in an awkward fashion, as if he forgot he put pomade in it this morning then ended up raking his fingers through it one too many times on his commute. And suddenly I can’t stop thinking about how he looked that night we fell into bed together, his cheeks flushed pink and his hair askew, his skin warm and supple beneath my hands as I touched him.
It’s been like a solid ten seconds since he asked the question. Shit.
“Yeah,” I say, and it comes out husky, like I haven’t taken a sip of water in ten years. I clear my throat and try again. “Just doing a first pass.”
Wyatt comes closer, setting his coffee down on the desk next to me and leaning in to peer at the images on my screen. He’s near enough that I can see the stubble on his jaw and throat. One of his hands grips the back of my seat. All I can hear, for one reeling moment, is the pounding of my own pulse in my ears.
“Do you mind?” he asks, gesturing toward the mouse. I shake my head.
He scrolls through some of the images I’ve selected, pausing on two or three to take a longer look. Of course, now that he’s watching, all I can see in my photographs are the mistakes.
“These are really good,” he says after a while—long enough that I’d begun to contemplate faking a doctor’s appointment or something just so I could leave. Which is stupid, because I’m the one who begged him to help me with this project in the first place. “I like how you’ve balanced the light. It makes the scene seem dreamlike almost, like this moment exists in a space between worlds.”
“Thanks. I—I guess I wanted to make it feel…private, maybe? The way you feel when you’re praying. There are other people in the scene, and you can feel their presence, but at the same time you’re alone. Just you and G-d.”
He nods. “You did that very well, then. It’s definitely coming across. You have such an eye for light—the way you capture it…everything in the photo feels ethereal somehow. It’s your focus on the people in the portrait that grounds the viewer in reality, but it makes that reality so much more beautiful. I think this could be a very powerful body of work, in the right hands,” he says. The softness of his voice wraps around me, sends a thrill down my spine. “In your hands, specifically.”
I stare down at those hands. I know what he’s trying to say. Or at least what he wants me to infer from this.
To do this properly, I’d have to actually go back there. Not to Crown Heights, not literally, but…it might as well be the same thing. I have to stop holding this project at arm’s length. I have to let myself feel it, let the memories well up like pools of silver nitrate solution. I have to stare directly into the past. I have to face it.
I have to face her.
Wyatt reaches over and grabs my shoulder, squeezes. He leaves his hand there a beat longer than he should—but not nearly long enough. I can still feel his phantom touch even after he pulls away. “What are you thinking about?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I start, even though I do. “I guess just…It’s a lot. It feels like undressing in front of someone you don’t know. The exposure, you know? If I do this project right, I’ll be making myself vulnerable.”
He hums out a wordless sound of agreement. “I know what you mean. All the best art is like bleeding in front of strangers. It’s terrifying. ‘Vulnerable’ is a good word for it. Someone could slip in while you’re raw and aching and twist the knife right where it hurts the most.”
I shift in my seat to look at him properly—how had I not noticed how close he is? If I’d leaned back just a little farther, his knuckles would have grazed my spine. I have to forcibly drag my attention up to his face.
“Is it worth it?” I say. My voice comes out scratchy. “After all the fear…I can’t stand the idea of doing all this for nothing.”
He nods slightly. “Yes. It’s worth it. It hurts, but it’s worth it. That’s why we do this, isn’t it? We want to say something important. But in art, you can’t just say what you want to say outright. You have to wrap it up in layers of meaning and symbolism and trust that your viewer will be able to unwrap them. Even when it’s scary. Even when it hurts.” A pause. “Especially then.”
He’s right. You can’t just say what you want to say outright. Not in art and not in life either. Not really. Because if you could, I’d open my mouth right now and tell him the truth about why I can’t face my past. I’d admit my sins and he’d recoil, and all that gentleness in his voice and hands would vanish into steam like water thrown on a hot pan.