“We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity.” – Malcom X

In school, my professor would lecture me about using feelings to describe an art piece in my research paper. Write as if the person could not see the art. Your job is to be as detailed as possible, she would say. I understood that in doing this I would improve my writing skills. Have my skills improved, possibly. Writing this way did allow me to search for details and interpret what I saw. I could not remove my feelings from my writing though.

So, for those of you like me who remain in their feelings… For those of you who see art and feel an emotion or see a belief…for those of you who sense or feel that figment of time capture from the imagination of the artist…I give you Affection, captured by the lens of Artist Quinton Kilgoe II hailing from Maryland.

Now for the description. A dim lit room filled with warm hues cover a couple in a mostly red and green glow. There is a soft violet glow in the background creating an informal nightlife atmosphere. The focus is on a couple positioned in the central foreground of the composition. A young woman with curly black hair leans in toward a young man who whispers in her ear. The woman is smiling as the man places his hand on her shoulder, his face hidden behind the coils of her hair. Two onlookers, a woman and man equally spaced apart, hover behind this couple. The female onlooker hovers just above the woman and the male onlooker above the young man. The setting is casual and the couples are present in the moment of this party.

Now for the feelings. There is a charm about the image. A truly unfiltered charm, like watching an elementary school romance just beginning to blossom. I hear the song Crush by Yuna and Usher playing in the background. The twinkle of a special kind of love captured and sealed forever in this frame.
That’s why I’m feeling the vibes of Affection. It was well captured like a butterfly flying gracefully into a mason jar. Silently waiting to be admired for it’s quiet beauty.

Adding another layer to this image, in reference to the times of today, it’s brilliant to see two people coming together in a truly affectionate way despite how others may view them. The couple in an intimate conversation are of different races. Does it matter? Absolutely not. They vibe to their own creative spark of something greater than themselves. A vibe that does not follow the standards of a history intended to separate them by fear.

This couple expresses their connection, if only for a moment, while the two onlookers who happen to be of opposite sex and race look away from the couple. Both onlookers stare in completely opposite directions. All figures in the frame are juxtaposed which leads me to create a narrative of my own. To find the emotion in Kilgoe’s Affection. I wonder if the two onlookers would like to join in an intimate conversation themselves and just don’t know what to say to each other. Or maybe they just finished in conversation and there was simply nothing else to say. Either way, I’d like to think the onlookers appreciate this moment of Affection as much as I do.

I’m attracted to this image because it was captured in real-time, not staged. I felt as if I was there in that moment watching the couple in what appeared to be an adoration of each other.
Photographer Quinton A. Kilgoe II is based out of Maryland. He specializes in portraits, lifestyle, candid and landscape photography.

Please view, like and comment on his artwork @qakii on Instagram or Flickr.com/c8vmedia or facebook at https://www.facebook.com/qakii88

Photo courtesy of the artist, Quinton A Kilgoe. Thank you for being so kind and allowing me to discuss your art work.

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