White Flower Petals

Asked for a bio, Tyler Henthorn sent this instead:

A funeral procession passes by, carrying a casket and a live brass band. A woman leans over the side and passes white flower petals through her fingers, scattering them along the road. A man on a scooter drives over them and wonders if it will rain today.

— Tyler Henthorn

Three sentences, and no mention of a camera in any of them.

This is Issue 06, and we are back in Saigon. If someone forwarded this to you, the subscribe form is at the bottom. If you are already on the list, thank you for being here.

Tyler Henthorn in Saigon

Most photographers asked to describe their work reach for equipment, or composition, or a genre. He described a stretch of road with two unrelated things happening on it — one sacred, one completely ordinary, neither paying the other any attention. That is a position on what a photograph is for, and it saves everybody three thousand words.

The credits cover a lot of ground for one eye. Four Paws International, which works on animal welfare across Asia — documentary work, unglamorous, running on trust and patience. VNExpress, Vietnam's most-read news outlet, with an audience in the tens of millions. And Ephemere, a photography journal that publishes with literary intent. Those three want very different things from a photographer, and he does not noticeably change voice for any of them.

His Instagram handle is silent.colossal, which is a contradiction, and a fair description of the subject: the enormous quiet thing sitting in the middle of an ordinary day, being ignored by everyone present.

Follow his work at @silent.colossal.