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False Shutter


(An excerpt from some journal entries in Spain. 4/5/2006)

They asked me to take their photo.

I don’t know why.
They are complete strangers on the street.

The first words they said to me:
<<¡Un Foto!>>
They would never see it.

Why do they want me to have a record

of them

of their stupidity

of their drunkenness

of their narcissism?

Why waste my film, my time, my money for them?

But I pointed the camera, adjusted the lens, pressed my finger on the shutter release.

<<OK>> I tell them, and smile.

Except it’s a lie, I never released the shutter

released the mirror
revealed the film

They were doubtful.

<<No hay flash>> I explain to them. That was true.

And they went off satisfied with my lie.

And I am OK with that.

Except that now I don’t remember how they look.

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