[The Guardian] The big picture: an ambiguous moment of human touch

The big picture: an ambiguous moment of human touch

Eva Lipman and Ken Graves’s startling image captures a moment of intimacy interrupted by the closeness of strangers

Our eyes are used to photographs that know faces. The photographers Eva Lipman and Ken Graves were far more interested in understanding the language of hands. This picture from their book Restraint and Desire is typical of their fascination. The longer we look at it, the more it reveals of the nuanced lexicon of touch, the way palms and fingers describe the emotion of relationships.

Do the couple dancing or embracing appear startled by the hands of two others? Are they being subtly pushed together or gently prised apart? Do the splayed male fingers and rucked dress suggest an easy intimacy or an awkward grip? Is the woman with her back to us being comforted or congratulated? Are these hellos or goodbyes? The uncaptioned pictures force us to project our own storyline on to the closeness of strangers, just as we do instinctively a hundred times a day.

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