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Prize-Winning Photograph
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Prize-Winning Photograph Tired of party scenes—beads thickening necks, the faces of the women glazed, so forgetful—the newspaper photographer climbs. Water slices from sky.There are men on the ground, and through the bars of the fire escape, he can see her dress, see the revelers jostle to be first. Someone is already calling for help. Or must be. And what can he do but break the group into frames, capture their want, the street coined with rain, her breasts torn from cloth? Nobody thinks to look up. Now he can hardly breathe. Now the camera overheats, jams, lens smoky. So it will be only ten shots— and the one that wins, in which she rises, belly bucking, fish skin.The paper censors her face, as if a shadow fell there. She will disappear, and so will the men, though they linger on in parts, in pieces: legs driven among legs, white teeth split open in grin.The hands we know.They’re ours. -18- ...