With so much time in my hands I sit at home and look around. Invariably when I am in the living room I spy this framed photograph of a former tango partner and friend Nena Kazulin. The photograph is to me an obvious portrait. I believe that after a face the next most important and telling feature of a human being has to be the hands.
Early in my boyhood I watched my mother and grandmother remove a strong box from a closet and open it to decide what jewellery to wear for a party. They picked necklaces and bracelets but invariably chose from their collection of rings. I do not recall my grandmother’s hands perhaps because my mother had hands to match her beautiful legs. She had long fingers and immaculate manicured finger nails. Since those days I always look at a person’s hands right after noticing their face.
And I would assert here that if my portraits have brought me some element of fleeting fame it is because when they hands show I do my best to show them in some graceful manner.
This photograph of Nena I took with Kodak B+W Infrared film. Because as boy I had fallen in love with Estella in Great Expectations I saw in this photograph (before I even took it) a vision of her guardian Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster, once jilted at the altar, who insists on wearing her wedding dress for the rest of her life.
It seems that I have blogged about hands before many times. Here are some of them:
And below a beautiful poem by Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti called Tus Manos (Your Hands)
TUS MANOS - Mario Benedetti
Tus manos son mi caricia
mis acordes cotidianos
te quiero porque tus manos
trabajan por la justicia.
Si te quiero es porque sos
mi amor mi cómplice y todo
y en la calle codo a codo
somos mucho más que dos.
Tus ojos son mi conjuro
contra la mala jornada
te quiero por tu mirada
que mira y siembra futuro.
Tu boca que es tuya y mía
tu boca no se equivoca
te quiero porque tu boca
sabe gritar rebeldía.
Si te quiero es porque sos
mi amor mi cómplice
y todo y en la calle codo a codo
somos mucho más que dos.
Y por tu rostro sincero
y tu paso vagabundo
y tu llanto por el mundo
porque sos pueblo te quiero.
Y porque amor no es aureola
ni cándida moraleja
y porque somos pareja
que sabe que no está sola.
Te quiero en mi paraíso
es decir que en mi país
la gente vive feliz
aunque no tenga permiso.
Si te quiero es porque sos
mi amor mi cómplice y todo
y en la calle codo a codo
somos mucho más que dos...
