Photograph 2 continued
The whole central part of the park including the boys, the trimmed grass and some decorative smaller trees and shrubs in front of the distant line of trees, is in sunlight. It doesn’t look warm but the light makes sense of the terrain.
The foreground is in shadow. Immediately in front of the camera is a decorative border with a variety of shrubs, some in better condition than others. To the right of the border two slender tree trunks with silver bark form parallel lines leaning in towards the centre at a 70-degree angle. In front of that a low metal railing borders a tarmacked path that connects to the grassed area. I think there may be a slight drop to a lower field where the boys are running.
Two young women are walking into the picture along the path from the right hand side. They look East African and both are wearing fashionable hijabs. The scarf on the left is pink; the one on the right has a multicoloured pattern. The women are mainly in shadow and I can’t make out the lower half of their outfits but both are wearing long satchel-like bags, the bag closest to us is mint green. Their faces are also in shadow but I think they are turned slightly away from the camera, I imagine they are talking together but watching the boys on the grass.
The final figure is compositionally close to the young women but he is physically further away, possibly unaware that they are walking past him. He is sitting, knee up, on an unusual wooden bench, which bounds the trunk of a large tree. There is some kind of package next to him that reads as a packed lunch. He is clearly having a break from work. The man is a physical worker in white overalls, perhaps a painter? The hood of his grey sweatshirt is up and he has his back to us but a cloud of white smoke, from a cigarette, lingers in the still air in front of his face, which is turned towards the view. It is his interest in the view, which makes this a pivotal character in the reading of the photograph. There is something conspiratorial about his presence, which encourages transference of mood as if I have jumped into his skin, just for a moment.
