CHANNELING THE MIGHTY “MISC”

A famous snap at a 1950’s 3-d movie audience from Life magazine’s popular “Miscellany” page.

By MICHAEL PERKINS

I GET THESE MOMENTS.

If I were the talent of a Henri Cartier-Bresson, the protean street photographer, I might call these brief flashes of humanity/absurdity, and the the pictures they produce “The Decisive Moment”, HCB’s phrase for the perfect collision of factors snatched from the timeline at precisely the correct instant to make something magical. As it is, at my level, such moments are more like “things that make you go ‘hmmm'”. Same aim, vastly different results.

As I have mentioned before in these pages, in my youth, the weekly arrival of the new Life magazine at the house was something of an event. Many illustrated news digests, in that golden age of periodical publication, tried to hit the perfect balance between essential current events coverage and “man in the street” photo essays, but Life, for my money, remains the standard. My favorite feature over the years was always found on the final page, just inside the back cover, a one-more-for-the-road picture called “Miscellany”. The photos in it were apropos of nothing beyond themselves. They weren’t connected to a hard-news story or editorial content. They were merely bits of whimsy, most of the “can you believe this happened/can you believe we shot this?” variety. Fun stuff.

You Talkin’ To Me??, February 2024

I still feel those images in my bones during street work. Bizarre juxtapositions of the beautiful and profane; strange meet-ups between the serious and absurd. In the case seen here of the two mature ladies walking past a recruitment poster for some kind of foundation fantasy, I saw these ladies approaching from just outside my right periphery while I was composing what would have been merely a shot of the shop window. As they walked closer I realized that they were going to cross in front of it, and, just like that, my brain clicked in Miscellany mode. How could I not bring the two factors together. It was ridiculous. It was fun. Click.

Photographs can often act as comedy relief, or at least a safety valve, against the buildup of pressure from issues that hang on us far too heavily. Sometimes you just have to step back and smile. Or remind others too. Channeling the mighty “misc” is one way of getting there.