Don Drowty 1975

This is "Don Drowty", a photograph by Mike Mandel. It’s this small black and white image, a bit like a baseball card. I love the set-up, the almost staged feel of it. Mandel is playing with this idea of the hero, the athlete, but there’s something off, something almost comical about it. Is this Drowty the baseballer, pretending to swing? Is it an idea of someone who is about to swing? Maybe we are all Don Drowty, caught in the moment right before the thing happens. You know, it makes me think about how much intention goes into a photo like this, and how much is left to chance. What's the intention? What's the accident? Just like in painting, it’s in that tension between the two where the magic lies. What do you see?