THE STORY BEHIND THE SHOT

Lockdown. 2020

Salud has better things to do.

‘Just five minutes,’ I say.

She doesn’t reply. Breakfast is over and our newly enforced routine is about to begin: a quick walk across empty fields, then home-schooling till the early afternoon. All four of us are bouncing off the walls, dulled and frustrated by lack of freedom.

I am desperate to do something different, break the monotony. A black backdrop is prepared in her dance studio (in my own mind it’s starting to morph into a photographic studio), and I’ve been wanting to do a shoot with her for weeks. 

‘Everything’s set up. We’ll be really quick.’

She throws me a look. I wash up as quickly as I can.

Then, with annoyed resignation, she agrees.

But instantly I start to wish I hadn’t persisted: she’s hardly in the right mood. And I haven’t really thought through how I want the shoot to go.

Moments later, she troops up the garden to the studio without changing, simply wearing the thin white cotton dress – little more than a nightie – that she’s thrown on for the first part of the day.

I scamper behind, not wanting to miss this precious opportunity, yet almost regretting it: she has a busy morning ahead teaching maths to a nine-year-old – in a language not her own – and could do without this.

We step inside. She skirts around the camera and tripod and stands at the base of the background, facing me, hands on hips.

‘¿Aquí?’

I nod, still wracking my brain for some ideas.

Then, without a word passing between us, she crouches down, places her hands out at her sides to steady herself, and crosses one leg over the other, bowing her head down. A streak of lighter hair, partially bleached by summer sun, arches up towards the bun at the back of her head.

‘Like this?’ she asks.

‘Don’t move!’ I say.

No time to check the light meter: I’ll have to guess it. A second for focusing, and I press the shutter. 

Then I breathe. 

It’s perfect, I know even now before I’ve developed the film; intuitively, she has said so much about everything, the moment, our strange new world.

‘Bien,’ she says, getting up. ‘Can I go now?’

It isn’t a question.

Through the window I watch her lithe, proud, graceful walk back down towards the house.

Later, many weeks later, I make a large print of the shot in the darkroom, frame it and hang it on the kitchen wall.

‘That’s nice,’ she says simply.

For a second I think about reminding her how hurried the shoot had been… 

Then smile, and let it go.