Down The Rabbit Hole

 

Down The Rabbit Hole

This is Bad Bunny falling into a crowd. I hadn’t seen the half-time show, so, initially, I wondered if it was AI. Apparently, it was a stunt double. Photography has been an important part of the graphic arts part of Me; photographer, reporter, the publisher and editor of a newspaper where it and the arts played an integral part of our product. This photo I found to be the most important shot of the Super Bowl half-time show but it was lost in the deluge of images.

I used to do photography old school back when film and cameras were expensive. There was the ordeal of processing the images; the suspense of not knowing if you “got the shot”, whether it was in focus, and you waited for the wondrous moment when the image magically popped into your developing agent tray. 

Has the digital age sapped this art of some of its soul?  It’s different. But the delight of sharing your image with others who will appreciate your work must certainly still be alive. Whether analog or digital,  the viewfinder tells you that you've taken a “good” picture. It's both artistry and opportunity. You know it when you see the child running, set aflame by napalm or a Viet Cong being executed on the spot, bodies falling out of 9 -11, the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima or the liberation of Paris. Life is full of these moments and photographers capture them.

But sometimes it takes more than that to understand what it is about a seemingly mundane photo that moves you emotionally (and, also how it is you are being played, something not limited to photography).

Many moons ago I became obsessed with Brian Wilson Key. He was all about “subliminal advertising” and the idea that ad copy was being produced containing latent images designed to bolster the sale of their products. The ice cubes in your whisky glass were infused with images of sharks on the theory that these and other dangerous instrumentalities would subconsciously bolster an alcoholics' self-destructive nature.  

It’s probably not Key that moves artists like Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny in the presentation of their shows. They are not merely musicians but multi-disciplinary artists, and, also a product of the computer age where things like Easter Eggs make their products ever more tantalizing. By design, we now view everything they do for its hidden meaning, pixel by pixel. 

It’s not like they don’t stick it in your fact. There was so much symbolism in the half time show that mountains of explanations have spewed forth from pundits: Lady Gaga in a typical Puerto Rican dress, red Flor de Maga corsage, our flag colors. (But which flag?); the little boy that people misconstrued to be the little kid that got kidnapped by ICE was a tribute to his mom; conejo means rabbit, his mom’s maiden name - also the name of the little kidnapped boy (who was wearing a bunny hat) .................  .........................................(rabbit hole) 

...................................................................

Yes,........... the picture. 

He is backwards on the ledge of the casita and falls backwards into a crowd who catches him and holds him up.  That’s called backward falling. It's a team-building, trust -inducing, fear-reducing experience.  That was a powerful message.

I have been, in the last weeks, suffering the same sort of mental exhaustion the rest of the country is experiencing.  I've had to talk to my kids, who are in the same way, and I try to keep a positive attitude. I have been getting angrier and angrier and lashing out at people unnecessarily. 

I didn't see the show, but I needed that picture.  It wasn't on an Iwo Jima scale. But it was therapeutic. I need that same sort of hope, resolve, and commitment.  I need the idea that we are here, that we can trust each other, that we have each other's backs. 

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