Obstruction

The photographer’s vantage point and dominant position over the captured scene—almost as if light as a feather and not sinking into the snow—do not lessen the suffocating feeling of the photograph. This place is closed off, and the top of the frame is so constrained that the view ahead can only be seen through that narrow slit. It is a kind of confinement in an external space. The accumulation of snow has also blocked the only way into the interior—the sole entrance to Attar’s brick inn. My mind finds no way but to slip into the dark corner at the center of the photograph, yet soon reason tells me that even imagination cannot build anything for that corner. There is no room for ambiguity, and no matter where I look, I ultimately remain stuck at a dead end.