Several years after a traumatic event happened, a couple approached me to ask for a favor. They had heard of my photography work before, and were hoping that I could spare some of my time to photograph them. I accepted their request to come by their house the next day to get started.
When I arrived, I observed the couple and the three small children clinging to their legs. All of them in their finest clothes; the girls were wearing clean, white dresses and the boys had on black suits. The family began to huddle together, the parents trying to get the children to stand still; their stressful faces concern me. Behind the fresh make up, I notice the dark circles that gloom under the parents’ eyes. The wild, rampaging children pout as they are trying to be motionless so they can watch cartoons later. The large brick home towers behind them. As they began to settle down, I realized that I should start working. My hands tremble as they all have their attention on me, but do my best to keep still. They try to hold their white, crooked smiles and straight posture until I give them the signal to relax. Once I am finished, I deliver them a thumbs-up. I study the image, noticing the usual mistakes: someone had blinked, a hand had moved, a hair was out of place, and a child was not smiling.
There was one other detail that I caught before letting the family see the picture. A figure of a young boy was standing in one of the windows of the house behind them. I asked them if they did not want their other child to join, but they told me that they had no other children. As the children ran back inside to join their toys, I showed the parents my work of them. They found it to be the closest decent family portrait they could get. Neither one of them mentioned the figure that I saw in the photo, so I did not bother to bring it to their attention in hopes that my job there was finished.
A few weeks later, a similar incident occurred. I captured some images at my neighbor’s wedding, and, when I went to examine them, each photo had a sad, young boy in dark clothing coming closer and closer to the camera. I could not recognize the boy’s face due to the blurry orb around him, and he was nowhere to be found at the wedding.
Beginning to wonder if something was wrong with my camera, I opened it up to investigate the situation. As I looked inside the camera, I found nothing but the tiniest shred of paper folded in the back. Before throwing it away, I noticed a small “s” written on the paper. I began to unfold the paper to see the rest of the scribbled message: “see me?”
My face was completely numb, and shock overwhelmed my body. My teenage son was using my camera to take pictures in the park a while back. I was told he was trying to capture the beauty of nature before nightfall. As he was returning home, a person in an alley mugged and stabbed him. When the police found his body, my camera was beside him, broken and damaged. I believe that was the one thing he refused to let the person have, which ultimately lead to his death. Assuming the camera was worthless after it was destroyed, the person ran off with my son’s wallet into the night to avoid the aftermath of police. I did everything in my power to repair the camera, believing that it was the only way I could still feel connected with him.
I never used the camera, until the couple had asked me to assist them. I was too depressed for so long that I could not even look at it. When I realized that my suffering and grief had to come to end, I began to slowly live again, which is when I decided to make use of the camera.
After putting all of these pieces together, I finally discovered who the boy in the photo was…my son.