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“Sometimes the game is just a conduit for something greater,
or a window into a more vital community.”
from Hanif Abdurraqib’s essay A World of Black Intimacy at the Card Table
I’d pull into Houston’s Third Ward at sunset, greeted by purple skies and bellowing Spanish Moss.
As I learned the neighborhood I was staying in, I became accustomed to a group of men who would make an appearance each weekend.
R&B blared from an oversized loudspeaker that would reverberate through the whole park as they slammed dotted porcelain-colored tiles onto the picnic table that had become theirs.
I’d highly recommend opening a window and queuing up “I Want to Be Your Man” by Roger and “Try Me Tonight” by T.K. Soul, two of the songs they’d play, to put yourself in the right frame of mind.
Parking during one such sunset, I was struck by beautiful light and energetic domino playing. I worked up the courage to ask the group if I could take a few photos. Disregarding what my light meter was telling me to do, I opted for a faster shutter to avoid the blur that would result from a slower shutter.
A week later, my images had been developed and scanned. Flipping through the frames, not the images shown in this post, it was clear that I had underexposed the film, which were also void of the communal energy I had observed. The images weren’t at all representative of the scene I had hoped to capture and in fact problematic in the way I had been unable to accurately capture darker skin tones. (Check out this great video by Aundre Larrow about shooting and editing darker skin tones.)
But, I had promised to bring prints the next time I was in Houston, so I printed several copies to give to the men who had so graciously allowed me to take their photos.
As the sun was setting on another warm spring evening, there they were again—as joyous and boisterous as ever. Running to my car to grab the prints, I was excited to hand them out. I figured they’d still be appreciative and maybe I was being overly critical.
Handing them out, Bruce, an impressively muscular man in a tight-fitting black tank top and matching fedora asked, “Have you been doing this long? You do know that when take a photo of a group of people you should be able to see all their faces?” His stoic expression quickly cracked into a smile.
In a few seconds, the entire table, including myself, was laughing, making fun of the underexposed prints.
Making up an explanation for my shortcomings Bruce interjected, “This guy is just getting his start as a photographer. Is everyone cool if he takes some photos?” Everyone was. I’ll have to use that line in the future.
As I captured a new set of images, shown here, it became clear that the first set of images despite missing the mark had served a very important purpose. The men I had met two weeks earlier were unbothered by my presence and I felt much more comfortable as I maneuvered around their table with my bulky medium format camera.
But after being invited in and making some pictures, we took a moment to have a short conversation. They told me about growing up together, we talked about how beautiful Spanish Moss looks at sunset, and the perils of I-10 (if you know, you know).
I love photography because as an inherently shy, but intensely curious person, my camera gives me an excuse to ask for an invitation into experiences I would otherwise have no reason to be a part of. Without my camera, it would feel very awkward to interrupt a game of dominoes among friends. My camera allows me to connect and engage with people whose lives would otherwise never intersect with mine.
For a very brief moment, I am graciously invited into worlds that I would otherwise never have access to—given “a window into a more vital community” (Hanif Abdurraqib, A World of Black Intimacy at the Card Table).
To be clear, I am in no way kidding myself into thinking that I am somehow deeply, or even superficially connected to a world of Black intimacy as the one Abdurraqib describes. But to be given a glimpse is a privilege in and of itself. Because ultimately, there is something culturally specific and special about a group of Black men who grew up together playing dominoes in the Third Ward.
My intention with these images is to try and capture their camaraderie, a certain brotherhood. I hope it comes across.