Santa Cruz Possibly 1973 - 1994

Richard Gordon made this black and white photograph of two young girls in what looks like a photo booth at Santa Cruz. I wonder what he was thinking when he took this shot; the eye contact of the two girls is magnetic. They are looking up, and they seem surprised and filled with wonder. A curtain hangs in the foreground, obscuring some of our view, but they are not hidden. They are perched on a stool, on display, yet intimate. It is such a tender image. Maybe Gordon wanted to capture a sense of curiosity and childhood innocence. Maybe he saw something of himself in their expressions and sought to freeze that moment in time. I always wonder, with photography, about the moment that it was taken, and what the photographer wanted to keep. And here we are, years later, still looking at this image, in a conversation across time.