Part 25

          Susan, John, and Ed all have piles in front of them now, though they're also swapping many of the photos back and forth, exclaiming over interesting views or subjects.  Mary and I are still waiting, looking eagerly at Brandon.
          "Welllll?" Mary asks, raising an eyebrow.  "You have a small pile left there.  Are you going to appease us yet?"
          "Well, I mean, I don't know if this is really what you're looking for, but..."
          Brandon holds up a single photo, eyes sparkling.
          Our jaws probably drop at the same moment, though neither of us could possibly have noticed, given how glued our eyes are to the photo that Brandon gently slides over closer to us.
          It's Meres and Azal, together.  And the first thing we notice is that they're half-naked and drop-dead gorgeous.  Just to get that out of the way.
          Their hair looks longer here than in some of the other photos, falling just past their shoulders, nor is it stiffly slicked and combed back in the style of the day.  Dark hair - though Azal's is somewhat darker, and Meres' has a hint of a wave to it.  And seeing their two faces together like this... it's clearer than ever to me that they're not brothers, but have led similar lives, that depth of experience and pain in their eyes is the same, though the planes of their faces differ so.  Azal's skin is more tanned than Meres' as well - this must have been shortly after his arrival from the Middle East.  Neither is exactly bulging with muscles, but their mostly bare chests are perfectly formed, with toned muscles that hint at power far beyond the trim appearance of their bodies.
          Azal is crumpled on the ground, on his knees and one elbow, torn remnants of a shirt barely clinging to his torso.  It looks as though there's a tattoo of some sort on his back, though the angle he's at doesn't allow for a clear view.  His eyes look dark and empty, almost hopeless in their dispair.  But he's lifted his face, his hair spilling back across his cheek, and lifting one hand - tiredly, I can almost see it trembling - upward.
          Meres is on one knee, a loose shirt unbuttoned and falling away from his chest, reaching a hand out toward Azal.  And his expression is no less pained, but he seems to have gathered just a little more strength, just enough, to try and take hold of Azal.  And maybe they'll both fall into the abyss that threatens them, but at least they'll fall together.  His other hand is clenched but not closed, as though he's holding it back from making some other motion, or maybe as though there's so much flowing through his body that he can't help but be physically moved by the emotions that wrack him.  They are in such pain, but are so devoted to each other despite - or maybe because of - that pain and sorrow.  As two people who have lost all else, and have nothing left to hold to in this world but each other.
          It's difficult to look away from the intensity of the two, but when I do, I see that they're in a ruined ballroom... and at first I'm unsure if it's a painted backdrop or an actual location, but on looking closer, I realize it's a painting after all, likely oil though it's hard to be certain.  And suddenly I wonder - did Meres paint this?  It doesn't look at all similar to the backdrops I've seen in Derick Reese's other images, and the rich sense of light, the color palette both rich and yet somehow muted, shadowed... I think it is Meres'.
          The floor is covered in bits of debris and dark dust, but beneath this are slabs of marble.  It's impossible to make out the overall design, but the carefully cut edges that are visible clearly hint at some kind of grand pattern.  A deep burgundy velvet curtain spills along one side of the image, behind Meres, while beyond Azal and between the two figures, a larger space can be seen.  Darkened gilt baroque ornamentation covers every possible surface, except for those painted in rich colors, hinting at scenes of Bacchanelian delight.  Marble columns are draped in gold swathes of vines and fruit and cherubs, the decorations all intensifing as they approach the ceiling, which vaults impossibly high above.  Several balconies are set high along the walls, but the ceiling arches away into shadows, too high for the light to reach.  A broken chandelier hangs precariously off-kilter, half of its crystals having come loose, and falling in a frozen shower toward the floor.  Shadows lie heavily around the space - there is light enough to see, but it falls eerily across the deserted space, highlighting spots of the golden accents just enough to make clear the contrast against the moldy and dust-coated rest.
          It's a staged image, clearly, and yet... and yet there's something very raw about it.  The emotion in their faces rings absolutely true, as though they're re-living a real moment they shared long ago.  The backdrop alone would tear at my heart, there's such a sense of beauty lost in that image, of pleasure turned to pain, of the sorrow in fading memories of better days.  I remember those disjointed images I saw at the art gallery from Meres.  They were too rapid and brief and specific for me to put together any kind of story - a face, trumpet flowers, a stormy ocean, other faces, smaller things like a rotting feather, a withered rose bush, writing I couldn't read, words I couldn't recognize, and that wrenching pain...  And I know Meres has suffered some great loss, Azal must have gone through whatever it was with him.
          Is this why Meres didn't lash out at Azal for the loss of the house and gardens? Or even for the rape of Celestine - if Meres had ever found out about it, that is, I have no idea.  Had they gone through something so much greater, that everything else seemed trivial to them by comparison?  But what could they have suffered, they didn't look that old... and I can't believe that Meres would take the wounding of Celestine so calmly.  There's no way he couldn't hold onto anger over that, it's been so clear just how deeply he cared for her, and wanted to protect her.
          "Ohhh my..." Mary breathes, and I'm pulled back to the present.  Almost.  It's going to take awhile for the spell of the image to leave me.
          "...yeah..." I add vaguely, not quite willing to leave these two.  "What an image, there's..."
          "Yeah..."
          Brandon chuckles quietly, nodding in agreement.  "It looked like an interesting shot even on the plate, I could tell it was something unusual.  But when I got it printed and a little larger, I was blown away.  The detail in that backdrop alone is incredible - and it's got to be a huge painting.  Sometimes, images like this would've been pieced together from two different plate exposures, super-imposed together when making the print.  But that wasn't the case here.  And those poses and their expressions..."
          "Yeah..."
          "I have to think Derick was trying to really make a statement, with this, and other pieces he did.  There was a huge debate early in photography's history, over whether it was a valid artform or not.  Traditional painters were really up in arms about it - probably because they felt threatened, recreating images had been something only they could do before.  But with photographs, anyone could capture any image with, so they claimed, absolutely no skill needed.  This is partly how the impressionist and abstract painters picked up steam, realism could be achieved so much better with photos.  But the early photographers wanted to show their images could be just as aesthetically pleasing as paintings were - so there were a lot of carefully arranged still life images, women in Grecian drapery or nude carefully posed, compositions mirroring as nearly as possible the paintings popular at the time.  I suppose it wasn't until exposure times dropped, and pictures could be taken of briefer, less posed moments, that photography really came into its own...  I'm sorry, I didn't mean to go off on such a tangent!"
          "Not at all - I had no idea photography had been such a contraversial thing!" Susan interjects, looking up from the photo in her hand.  "It's so commonplace now, I can certainly see why painters would have worried they'd be run out of business.  Who commissions a painted portrait nowadays?  We just run to the local department store and drop fifty bucks for a family Christmas photo."
          "Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing they were worried about.  I think traditional mediums and approaches are starting to make a little bit of a comeback now, but I think there's also something really important about the immediacy of a photograph.  Even an image like this one," he says, setting out the photo of Evelyn at the fountain.  "Now, while a painter could certainly capture the light falling on her hair, he'd probably have to make up a lot of details later, there's no way you could get it all at once, the light would have changed by the time you moved from one section to the next, let alone another area of the painting.  And the water - these cameras couldn't catch the droplets in midair, of course, but I think it gives an even better sense of movement this way, with the light reflecting off the blurred water in motion."
          I look up from the photo to Brandon.  "You had a class with Kenton, didn't you."
          He laughs.  "I did.  Can't say my pathetic drawing skills were improved much by his class - though that's not his fault, I'm just horrible at it - but those daily critiques really helped me nail the artist-speak."
          "I used to make a game out of trying to come up with highfalutin artistic rationales for the most ridiculous things.  But after a few years as an art major... I came to the unfortunate conclusion that I could actually have been right."
          "Did you have an explanation for that weird lumpy arch thing by the ampitheater?"
          "You mean the Gates to Macaroni Hell?  That was clearly a statement about the pitfalls of consumerism.  The pipe-bits were obviously shaped like macaroni noodles, and the vivid orange color of the entire piece made it clear it was a reference to Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, with its distinctive unnatural coloring and content.  Kraft Mac'n'Cheese is a symbol of American consumerism and commercialism, with the evening meal being bought at a store rather than made within the family home, out of chemicals and ingredients processed to the point of unrecognizability.  By walking through the arch, you show your tacit acceptance of the..."  I wave vaguely, unable to keep a straight face any longer, and join in the laughter.