I didn’t have the opportunity to go through family photo albums because I am not at home but I was able to scroll through photos on my phone and computer and discovered this photo in a family group chat. I was struck by it due to what seems like the visual similarity between it and the winter garden photograph. Two children standing apart from each other, here in what is likely spring. But for me I was not struck with the same chord of emotion.

All the context I know of this photo is that she standing with her cousin, someone I have never met nor know they name of. Perhaps for me then he is the punctum, this presence of someone familiar to my mother at the time but so unfamiliar to me that creates a distance from me. I also have a difficult time recognizing my mother in this photo which is another sort distancing. It does capture a likeness that reminds me of my mother or the seed that I feel has grown into who she is now.

I know that this perhaps was not the point of the excercise– to find a photo that does not capture the essence of my mother–but I find it almost as interesting. How does time or angle make takes someone likeness away and what does it feel to be distanced from someone you love by not being able to recognize them?

I also was interested in the photo because it does not convey a neccessary warmth or care which might be considered some of my most primary emotions associated with my mother (and Barthes as well). I am interested how we take photos of ones we love and care about when there are also complicated sides of those relationships that often remain unexpressed.