This is a Picture

by John Samuel Brown

>This is a picture of five middle schoolers, two girls and three boys, taken with the flash on, making them look bright against the darkened living room. The two girls are holding scissors around one of the boys, the one wearing a new-looking “Avenged Sevenfold” T-shirt. He has long hair that presents in a lopsided gradient, presumably because of the scissors. 
There is a movie playing on the TV behind them, which splits the attention of the other two boys, both also in band T-shirts, but it is unclear which bands they represent. Everyone is smiling. One boy and one girl have braces, but neither of them seem especially self-conscious about them in this moment.
>Caption: Danny Havoc hair


>This is a picture of three high school girls sitting on a concrete planter, the kind that cities or developers construct into the sides of buildings. There is a red brick wall behind them and they appear to be outside, as bright, sunset-hued light slashes across their faces. There are carefully torn holes in their jeans and their wrists combined have dozens of bands and bracelets. 
All three are smoking cigarettes, but one of them is smoking a black clove cigarette. All three are smiling, maybe laughing, but the one with the clove cigarette almost has a sneer, and is presenting her middle finger to the camera, not confrontationally, but slyly, almost in her lap. 
Caption: Queen Bitches (and sister)


>This is a picture of two boys, aged between high school and college, wearing vintage T-shirts representing different years of the same summer camp. They are sitting behind a card table upon which is a steel cash box, several flyers for different events, a stack of CDs, and an ambiguously-placed section of cardboard that reads “$5.” 
They are posing by putting their arms and legs over each other like an awkward family photo. One of them has an armband tattoo that resembles the cover of Cursive’s The Ugly Organ. More sunset light is streaming in through the windows next to them, illuminating grime and dust on the floor.
>Caption: So proud, first show


>This is a picture of a band playing on a small stage in a dark room. It is taken from the side, and there is just enough light to see the guitarist, the bassist, and the singer. The guitarist’s legs are spread in an exaggerated fashion, his guitar being struck between them, while the bassist is upright, stiff, and receding into the corner. The singer is looking upward, spinning his microphone around in an arc, its motion blurring as it exceeds the camera’s shutter speed. 
What can be seen of the front row stands about ten feet back from the stage in a semi-circle, their arms crossed. A few faces are illuminated looking toward the lighting trusses, but most are just shiny foreheads pointed toward the band. 
>Caption: Third try to swing the mic from the rafters


>This is a picture of the clove cigarette girl and the tattooed boy kissing outside. It is dusk and there is twilight filtering through the branches of the trees behind them. Both their eyes are closed and their arms are drifting downwards in an embrace. Even the sodium vapor exterior lights don’t wash them out enough to hide the flush of their faces. 
They are captured from a slightly lower angle, about sitting height, and from only a small distance away. There are other people milling about behind them, but no one else is paying attention to them. They don’t seem to have noticed the photographer.
>Caption: Ew


>This is a picture of another band, taken from the opposite side of the stage, and all the members  are in various states of wild motion, with the guitarist fully leaping into the air and the drummer almost standing. The audience is in similar motion, pressed against each other, their arms and legs frozen in barely controlled swings. 
The drummer appears to have just struck his crash cymbal, which is no longer a disk. A sliver of gold can be seen about a foot away, weightlessly suspended in a par can light beam. At the edge of the mosh pit, the audience that was still engaging with the band doesn’t seem to have noticed, except for the boy wearing an Avenged Sevenfold T-Shirt. His eyes are wide.
>Caption: Awesome, I fucking shot that


>This is a picture of the boy in the Avenged Sevenfold T-shirt. His hair is now even more uneven, but still long in a number of places. The picture is close in, but it’s apparent that he is sitting on a curb or a parking stop. There is blood from a gash in his forehead dying the blonde roots of his hair. 
Regardless, he is mid-laugh while holding a wadded-up cloth in his hand, also covered in blood. There is a CD jewel case and a rolled up fabric object, likely a T-shirt, in the crook of his arm. There is a hand reaching out of frame and grasping his shoulder in a firm, loving way.
>Caption: Our scars tell our stories


>This is a picture of a woman playing bass. It appears to be extremely zoomed in, with flyaway hairs and upraised hands of the crowd in front of the photographer taking increased, fuzzy prominence in the lower half of the frame. The woman is thin and blonde, with a couple tattoos on her forearm, wearing low slung jeans and a graphic t-shirt.
The woman is focused on her fretting hand, and the only movement apparent seems to be coming from the photographer, blurring the whole frame ever so slightly. There is a microphone stand in front of her, the swirling headstock of a bandmate’s guitar to her left, and the fuzzy outline of someone playing drums behind her. 
>Caption: I want to be Shannon Burns when I grow up


>This is a picture of a broken doll, possibly a Bratz doll. It is missing sections of hair and its outfit’s shoulder straps are broken, pulled down to its waist. It is in a curbside gutter, surrounded by leaves, an empty potato chip bag, and broken glass. 
To the right is one of the middle school girls, almost out of focus due to her proximity to the lens. It’s clear that she’s making some sort of sign with her hands, with her fingers twisted, interlocking, and facing downward and out, like a faux gang sign. It likely means nothing.
>Caption: Street Life

>This is a picture of a mixed group of people running into a dark alley, the flash reflecting off of studded belts on low slung jeans and high vis stripes on Vans sneakers, with almost no one looking back. Judging by the blurring of the frame, the photographer is running as well. Loose bricks, trash, and cinder blocks pop out of the darkness, and the illuminated edges of the buildings indicate an industrial alleyway.
There is one person looking back. It’s difficult to tell who they are, but they do not appear to be scared. In fact, they appear to be enjoying the moment. From behind, apart from the various heights, gender and age are indistinguishable. Just a group of fringe haircuts, tattered, skin-tight jeans, and military surplus cargo shorts caught disappearing into the dark.
>Caption: [No Caption]


>This is a picture of the back window of a pickup truck, taken from the inside. Outside the window, two of the teenage girls and two of the middle school-aged girls are sitting in the pickup bed. The vehicle is moving, and the streetlights are fuzzy streaks of yellow around the frame.
Everyone in the truck bed is looking on with blank expressions, their hair in wild sprays opposite the direction of travel. The teenagers have their arms braced around the walls of the truck, more relaxed and posing with the self-consciousness of trying to look cool. The middle school girls seem more engaged with the idea of riding in the back of a truck and are instead peering over the walls, their hands locked around the frames under their chins.
>Caption: [No Caption]


>This is a picture of a jenga tower with many pieces missing. There’s writing on the sides of some of the blocks, but it’s impossible to discern, faded and written with poor handwriting. The game is being played on the floor, the wood bricks resting uneasily on a paisley carpet and surrounded by bare knees poking through torn denim. 
The light is warm and soft, like living room lamps in the evening, and the only indication of who the participants are or what they may be like, apart from their knees, is a tall aluminum can behind one of them, turned just enough for plausible deniability but would be clear to anyone who knew that it was a Sparks can. But only one. 
>Caption: More like these, just like this, forever.

John Samuel Brown is a born and raised Montanan lost in Middle Tennessee. In other lives, he’s been a cook, a volunteer coordinator, a junk salesman, and director of the Montana Book Festival. Now, he just writes and referees for his dog and cat. In his free time, he coordinates video production for the Webby Award-winning Youtube channel SciShow.

>>next>>