deleted name: Just lately I’ve been obsessed with a
photograph, one I never took.
Skunk: Who did?
deleted name:
Whu-? Oh no, no no no, nobody, nobody took it, it was my photograph, but I just never took it. It’s uh,
sighs
deleted name:
you don’t,
sighs again.
deleted name:
I used to carry this old Leica camera with me, everywhere, when I was
travelling, it was my father’s, and uh, I was in New York um, now, I honestly
don’t remember if it was... if it was after New Year’s, or if it was between
Christmas and New Year’s. I have this feeling it was between Christmas and New
Year’s because um... I was heading out to some small gallery off 23rd
Street, you won’t, this won’t, I mean this won’t mean anything to you, but I
was walking along opposite the Chelsea Hotel which, I suppose, you might have heard of that, the Chelsea,
and uh, and the reason I think it might have been between Christmas and New
Year’s is, was because there were these trees out on the sidewalk, Christmas
trees I mean, which may have been people going back to work, the shops or, you
know just putting their decorations out for, for the trash, and uh, I remember
it was snowing, very hard, but it hadn’t been snowing very long so, it wasn’t
like sidewalks were choked with it or the roads or, the place wasn’t white it was more kind of, the snow was
only just starting to lie, so you could still see, you could still see colours
other than white. But it was lying on the trees that had been thrown out, these
Christmas trees and uh, they were still green, that was the thing, they were
still green, real trees, but they had this...
a long
pause, and then he resumes, carried on the momentum of reverie:
deleted name: I don’t want to say frosting but... well it was,
just a, they had some snow on them,
and one of the trees was lying on its side, and it had all these red uh, ribbons, dozens of red ribbons tied onto
the branches in, in these Mobius loops, these kind of infinity symbols, figure
eights, tied to the branches, somebody had obviously decorated the tree and
hadn’t taken off the... just wanted to throw it out as it was, couldn’t be
bothered un-, taking all the ribbons off. And so that was lying there in the
street, at the edge of the sidewalk, and I walked past and I saw this tree with the snow, the snow on it and
these bright red loops against the green, the snow, the snow coming down, the
hotel, there was the hotel across the way, the Chelsea, lost in the, in this blizzard really, and I figured if I
squatted down and waited for a yellow cab to pass by, I could take the tree and
the cab and the ribbons and the hotel, the falling snow, snow on the ground and
on the tree, it was a perfect shot and I never took it. For some reason, you
know I was too cold, or I didn’t want to, to get out my camera, or I didn’t
have time, maybe I didn’t even have my camera with me, to be honest I honestly don’t remember, I don’t
remember... And the strange thing is that.. I could have taken... In not, in
not taking the photograph, I don’t know what I’m saying here... I... What am I
saying? I remember the photograph even though I didn’t take it, that, I’ve
managed to stop that moment of time, to arrange it, to compose it.... put a cab
in there, stop the snow... I’ve managed, I’ve made a photograph oh I don’t know
what I’m saying, I stopped time... whatever it would have been, a sixtieth of a
second... I’ve captured and held that with no physical... That’s how I remember
it anyway, the photograph, and from the photograph I work back, to walking along the street, to passing the Chelsea to where
I was going. I don’t work to the photograph. I remember the photo that was
never taken, and work back from it...
