waltcessna:

Tony photographed by Walt Cessna NYC 11

This photograph strikes me.  It pricks me as Roland Barthes would say.  The model looks off to my right to something beyond the frame, to the future, to the next moment…yet my desire to share his gaze (his joy?) is continually frustrated by the tattoo of a bird skeleton (or a dinosaur?) on his chest.  The tattoo interrupts his gaze and mine and makes me think of death and the ending of things rather than the future.  The tattoo and the entire photograph remind me that we will all be skeletons one day with only our photos left behind online and in boxes under the bed.