Gymnasium silas-finch Portraits in Life and Death

Portraits in Life and Death (1976)

Sometimes I think that Maine is like my foster family

looking through the bars at another prisoner

Charlie Chaplin

I’m saying there are many

Gymnasium silas-finch Portraits in Life and DeathThe teenage athletes in Luke Smalley's pictures seem inhabitants of some time or place other than the northwestern Pennsylvania towns where the photographer recently found and photographed them. The sensuality of these young athletes seems familiar, their gaze immediate and direct, yet their otherworldly quality remains a product of the artist's unique vision. No telephone or television seems possible in this not quite familiar landscape. For the past