Look at That

Hospital Waiting Area, Plano TX. Studying photography for five years has changed how I experience daily life. I notice more beautiful and interesting moments, like this one. Beautiful and interesting to me, anyway. One concept I've never cottoned to is the idea that a photograph needs to "tell a story." Maybe this one does — "I'm healed!" — but it doesn't have to. What I see is an empty wheelchair parked in front of a low, yellow-framed bench in a space that reads more like a boutique hotel lobby than a hospital. The setting is warm, amber-toned, almost luxurious, and the wheelchair cuts right through it. Four vertical abstract panels hang on the wall behind, lit from above like a gallery installation, and echoing the lines of the column. The scene has a strange, composed stillness to it. It made me stop. That's enough. That's not a story... though if your imagination goes there, cool. I could have written about the medical scare my wife had; the reason we were in this waiting room in…