Images of others

What does the face of suffering look like? That's the question that occupies Maddy Krugman, a seductive photographer who is constantly playing for attention in Robert Wilson's mystery, "The Vanished Hands." Fixated on appearances and what they reveal (or don't), the desperate redhead has made a career out of shooting people "suffering in intensely private moments, but out in the open."

In the book Maddy is portrayed as a rather unsensitive women and her hobby as something bizarre. Looking at people, without letting them know you do, observing them in private moments may seem voyeuristic and, worse, as an invation of privacy. Oh, the presious privacy. But how close do you get to people talking to them? Do you always feel you reach them? With a few people we'll connect and make friendships or relationships and through time and interest we build up trust and intimacy. But we cannot reach everybody. We cannot learn something about the world of everyone. Except in small stolen moments of observation.

Sitting in a cafe or in a park or in any public place you rub your life against the life of strangers passing you. You may observe them smiling, putting on a show or being someone for the people they are with, or you might catch them with an expression at most reserved for private rooms, for lovers or friends. You can see tears or shaking heads, but mostly it is only the eyes that reveals the thought. The eyes that convey the feeling.

I often find myself drawn to observe. Depending on the boundaries of the person I tell this to, I will often hear the response that its weird to go to cafees and public places and just sit. Alone. But to me, its the best way to be with anybody without anybody asking anything of you. Without having to express anything about anything you can loose yourself in the thoughts, expressions and ideas of somebody else. I will never meet them again or know anything about them, i will never reveal the secret of their eyes, but I've knowned them, just for a second. And for a second I felt what their life was about. And then I go back to mine.