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Street scene in Qandahar
At the time of my travels in Iran and Afghanistan I had a
technique for memorizing quick-changing human scenes: I would
look, shut my eyes briefly and "see" what I had
just seen. (What is this "seeing" that is done not
with the eyes?) Then I would open my eyes to correct my impression;
perhaps repeat this several times — and thus photograph
the details on the back of my eyelids. It was derived from
gazing at clouds in childhood and wondering how far away they
were and how they moved and changed, and finding that I could
sense these by shutting and reopening my eyes. But what works
is not so much a technique as the confidence with which you
are using it. I was sitting in a café looking out at
the street. After sketching people, I would later add a background,
which might not be from the same place. I went over the drawing
later with colored inks.
Much more could be said about Qandahar, in which I encountered
my own double. Later the city (spelled Kandahar in western
media) became the cradle of the Taliban.
These pictures are mostly lost. This and one or two others
from Afghanistan were later bought by a doctor in Greenville
with a name like part of mine. When the Afghan-Russian war
broke out I asked to borrow them so as to show them at a public
event; but he said "I like them and I'm afraid you'll
steal them" and wouldn't let me even come to look at
them. Later again I encountered someone who knew his daughter;
the doctor had died, the daughter had two of the pictures,
and (for more than her father had paid me for them) she let
me borrow them and have them scanned by a friend. They barely,
and perhaps with damage, survived a mistake my friend made
with the scanned files after the pictures had been returned
to their protective owner.
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