“First tears over another man” is part of a series of photographs by Elinor Carucci titled “Crisis”. At first glance the photo seems ambiguous about what the intentions of the people in the photograph are. The male is obviously the husband or boyfriend in the relationship, and the female has obviously been hurt by another man, hence the title. But the way I took it originally was that the man was taking advantage of the women’s loss, and trying to act like he is comforting in order to win her over. The major clues that argue this theory are the look on the women’s face and the remote in the man’s hand. The women does not seem scared or like she just wants a quick fix to her problem, but instead looks comfortable and like she is at home in this man’s arms. He holds a remote loosely, like he may drop it, and his hand is reaching for the power button. This shows that he is ready to devote all of his attention to comforting her, rather than doing what the stereotypical man would do in this situation: relax and watch television. After researching this photo, I discovered that the women in the picture was Elinor Carucci herself. The “Crisis” series was taken during a difficult time in her relationship with her husband. She believes the camera helped her reevaluate the situations they were going through, and the fact that he let her take these pictures during the worst of times let her reconnect with him. She used photography to see those times clearly, to see the beauty in all the aspects of life, and she used photography to calm her self down. Creating was something that felt constant through her chaotic life. Unlike most of her pictures which have less specific names than this, she thought it was necessary to let the viewer into the situation and know what’s going on. As she was taking the “Crisis” series, she was also dealing with severe back pain along with her emotional pain, and took a seperate series of photographs documenting the physical pain that she entitled “Pain”. According to her, both the physical and emotional pain came to a halt around the same time, and she uses the photographs as not only memories of what has happened, but as reminders of how suddenly something can happen in her (or your) life, and how big of an impact that sudden something can have on your life.
