When I lived in Washington, DC I often experimented trying to create interesting images either within the camera, during the film processing, or inside the darkroom.
One of those images is this haunting capture which was created in the mid '90s at someone’s farm near a large, flowing river during a two-day trip in a small town in Virginia where a group of 30-40 friends gathered for a bbq, water adventures, and fun games.
Most of these folks were in the backyard playing ping-pong or other type of games, some were dancing as the sound of rock&roll music blasted from two large speakers, others were helping with the cooking and some were spread out and conversing while seating on folding plastic or metal chairs.
I had my Leica with me and even brought a special Polaroid camera along. But I was having too much fun and didn't take any photos until the last day there.
The day of my arrival, I had left my phone in my car so on my second day I decided to stroll down a fairly steep hill where I had parked the vehicle on the side of the road all the way down.
As I sauntered away from the gathering, I noticed this young lady standing by the screened backdoor, watching the world. It reminded me of a bird in a cage wanting to get out and fly away but it knew that it was impossible. The frozen way she stood there and how the light fell on her it made that moment seemed a bit surreal.
Then, I pulled the Polaroid camera and noticed that the light had changed and landed harshly on her eyes. I took two frames then she lowered her head, closed her eyes, and shot one last frame.
When I saw the eerie results on the small photo, I didn’t think much about it until a few days later when I was able to make a larger print from the negative. As the print was brought to life inside the darkroom, without any sense of foreboding, I felt emotionally disturbed. For all, I could see was an unimaginable dystopian world which in our lifetime, could have never become a reality. Sadly with our lives and the world in a lockdown purgatory, now this photograph became more dreadful.
Manuello Paganelli © 2020
