Graduation, Bangor High School, Bangor, Pennsylvania 1977

Larry Fink made this photograph, "Graduation, Bangor High School, Bangor, Pennsylvania," at an unspecified date. The whole scene is bathed in a soft light. The grainy texture gives it an intimate, almost nostalgic feel. You can almost smell the emotion in the air. Look at the central figures, locked in an embrace – one with her eyes closed, a tender hand behind her head, and the other, a darker silhouette, holding tight. I imagine Fink, moving around the fringes of the crowd, unnoticed, quietly hunting for a decisive moment where emotion becomes visible, almost palpable. What would it be like to be a fly on the wall, always observing, always recording, trying to distill the chaotic energy of a public event into a single, frozen frame? And it’s all there. He gives us a black and white scene, with the American flag, other graduates, younger kids looking on. This photograph is a symphony of micro-gestures that add up to something bigger, something about coming of age in America.