Portraiture Artist Karchi Perlmann | Old Man Reading | Fine Art Photography

Old Man Reading is a photograph I took while I lived and worked in a sleepy retirement community in Florida. My studio was close to the beach and every night my daughter I went down to see the sunset and to take a dip in the ocean. I would see this old gentleman every night sitting on his lawn by the gentle ocean breeze, always incredibly immersed into the reading of his newspaper and to the listening of the ocean waves. I couldn’t help but consider and reflect on the phenomenon of human intellectual hunger we all have and how our body becomes a slave to satisfy this hunger. Clearly this gentleman’s eyesight and hearing was significantly compromised due to the many years he has been walking this earth, but nothing deterred him from continuing this afternoon/evening ritual.

I have photographed portraits of people in every phase of life, but photographing people in the autumn of their lives was always special to me. I couldn’t help but think of my own mortality and reflect on the things in life that make me happy as well as motivate me to go to any lengths despite my physical limitations. I knew then as I know now that I would be shooting photos even if I needed a magnifying glass to peer through my viewfinder. This shot represents my journey as well as “our” journey, giving an image to the narrative of the human experience – especially when it allows itself to play out in a sequential and a natural progression.

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