Encounter 2017

Alfred Freddy Krupa snapped this picture, Encounter, sometime in his life. I love how the focus shifts here, blurring the foreground to sharpen the fearful cat in the distance. It’s like memory itself, isn’t it? How we choose what to bring into focus. The tonality creates a narrative of the encounter. The photograph captures a moment of tension with soft gradients. The cat, arched and ready, is rendered with a clarity that contrasts with the grainy texture of the road. The blur might be an effect of the camera, but it also evokes the sensation of adrenaline, that quickening of the pulse when faced with something unexpected. This piece reminds me of some of the darkroom experiments done by artists like Man Ray. It invites us to think about how chance, or even mistakes, can become the very substance of art.