Two girls
One very shy
Hiding behind her friend
But… just a moment
A moment earlier
I’d snapped another
A different moment
Altogether
The same girls
But not the same girls
Every picture tells a story
Don’t it?
No
A few sentences
A fragment
A teaser
I cannot take enough pictures
To tell their story
Who they really are
Their thoughts
Their hearts
Even in the moment
I snap the shutter
I cannot collect enough moments
To give us the whole
To give them to you
To know them myself
Even as they gaze
Straight at us, at me
So openly
Gazing into them
Trying to know them
Is looking straight into me
Because the story the picture tells
For me
Is the one I create
For them
Yet every story I create
Is a story about me
Intended… or not
I have not collected enough moments
Of my own life
Even to know myself
As I sit here
Writing these words
Gazing into myself
So openly
Telling stories about others
Which are all about me
Kashgar
Xinjiang Autonomous Region, The People’s Republic of China
Taken during travels, 1998