maria

I run through this silly, probably obnoxious series of questions when I am making a child’s portrait, just to get him or her to relax, smile, laugh, and realize I am nowhere near threatening. Sometimes I ask the same questions of adults – things like who’s your favorite superhero, what was the last good book you read, what’s your favorite food, who’s your favorite teacher, what was the last annoying thing your brother or sister did to you… that kind of thing.

I usually also throw in what’s your favorite color? This works well with both kids and adults. Usually, they pause, give it a little thought, and then smile fully with the absolute knowledge that aquamarine or salmon or sparkly silver is the current pick.

Yesterday I photographed a Holocaust survivor named Maria. I fired off the first question, not really giving it a lot of thought: what’s your favorite color? No pause necessary. “White,” she said in her thick Polish accent. I went about shooting, but she continued, in a very serious tone. She explained to me that it was white, yes, definitely white, and it had been white ever since the day she was liberated from the place she and her mother hid for twenty-eight months during the Nazi invasion and occupation of Poland. I put my camera aside and listened as she described how absolutely dark everything was in the cramped underground bunker, how sometimes she would ask her mother why does it always have to be so dark and her mother shushed her and said, quiet, someone will hear you. Once they were freed from this place of hiding, young Maria was wowed by the light, by everything bright.

It meant life to her.

Sixty-odd years later and her home is white on white – white carpet, white furniture, white flowers, white drapes. Her favorite clothes are white.

She doesn’t like dark.

I hoisted up my camera after she finished answering my simple question so I could continue making pictures of her. Through the viewfinder she suddenly looked different to me.

It’s amazing how one seemingly innocuous question can bring you to a deeper understanding of someone else. One of the true blessings of doing what I do.