I came across this picture in an old history book of mine, given to me by my mother. Ever since I saw this image of Lewis Powell I have never forgotten it and it has always stuck with me. Lewis Powell was a Confederate States Army soldier who attempted to assastionate the US Secretary of State, and was one of the four hanged for the Lincoln Assasination conspiracy. This image if anything is haunting, it is as if it has lodeged itself in my mind. I was immediatley captivated, there is a distant subjectivity becomes it. He seems unsure and wrestling with the cameras gaze.
There are many ways to look at a photo, espeically portraits, like passport photos, so clear and raw. Roland Barthes’ the author of Camera Lucinda was taken by the way that this photo suggests, ‘That has been’ and ‘This will die’. it is realted to three realities, Powell was, he is no more and he is going to die. This brings me to the way I see things. what is interests me is the present and futuristic way to look at a picture. the present in which you look at a recent image, perhaps you dont like the way you look at it etc. and the in the futre looking back at your youth, or even a stranger gazing upon it in wonder of what was.
Going back to Powell, Alexander Gardner the person who captured this unique image must have realised he had something special as he did not bother to capture as much with the other conspiritors. Hisotian James Swanson Explains ‘[Gardner’s] images of the other conspirators are routine portraits bound by the conventions of 19th century photography. In his images of Powell, however, Gardner achieved something more. In one startling and powerful view, Powell leans back against a gun turret, relaxes his body, and gazes languidly at the viewer. There is a directness and modernity in Gardner’s Powell suite unseen in the other photographs.’
It is as if the camera does not let us forget oursleves and the love or pain there is something unique in each picture, an affirmity of life something that booth photos are drenched in.
