Can a photo be great?

All art is documentation. Eyes turned in or turned out, it’s all the same. Was this shared? Partly. I was not alone. The light was distinct, though, uniquely radiating to me. “Perspective.” Can a photo be great? What if I told you this man in the foreground was a well-known painter who walks 6 miles on the beach each morning and writes his prose in the sand, close enough to the ocean for the waves to sweep the words back into its depths? What if I told you this photo wasn’t mine at all— that it was taken in 1968 by Henri Cartier-Bresson when he took a holiday to the American west coast as a newly heartbroken man? What if I told you this was taken by a 4 year old who’s father buys her rolls of Kodak film instead of dolls (a gift that she would not understand until he dies of a heart attack just 2 miles from this beach)? What if I took this photo, and I told you what was going on in my heart when I pressed the shutter? From a thoughtful composition to a beautiful accident to the mystery inside (Isn’t it all those things, anyways?). The art is delicate. The story is unyielding.