I think this picture, although on first viewing does not appear so, feels like a continuation of some of the issues I addressed very early in my career.

This picture was originally shot while I was doing a story on hedge funds. I don’t think it was ever used, but has remained one of my favorites from that shoot. The question that has intrigued me over the years, is What is it about this picture that resonates with me? Often, I can tell you quite quickly and deliberately what it is about a picture that I like or dislike, but this one alluded me for some time. Therein lies its strength.

In the case of this picture, I do not believe my emotional response to the image is the same as many others I have described over the previous weeks. Obviously, I shot it. It has my particular orientation and vernacular, but to me, there is something very mysterious and unresolved about this picture. It is almost like a portrait, yet nothing like it. It’s close, but it’s no cigar. It is familiar, yet it is completely unknown.

I think that the quality of its peculiarity, its slightly unfamiliar composition, is truly the heart of the matter. Like a great portrait (the master of them all being Leonardo’s Mona Lisa), there is no resolution. It remains enigmatic, drawing you in continually, but raising more questions than it resolves. The list of unresolved issues for Leonardo’s painting has grown over the years rather than diminished. And that is why I like this photograph. The hedge in this outdoor room, the position of the figures, their relationship to the hedge, to the world, to each other, is never resolved or obvious. What is going on with them, and with life, and therefore with me, remains in question.

A great photograph must never answer all the questions, otherwise you would never be drawn back to it. It must continually remain unresolved. It must draw you back. You may want to know the circumstances, but the question remains: Will you ever understand it completely?

On this Monday prior to Thanksgiving 2009, I wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving. I hope that these comments do not answer all your needs, but raise the desire for more. The book is a means to an end. In fact, the end may just be the beginning. That would be a gift worth giving.

I’ve included a few older pictures, pictures from 30 to 40 years ago, where I feel some of these issues were already brewing.