The Little Boy and His Ghostly Father

This I took at The Getty Center in Los Angeles on December 31, 2011.

You can see the lad apparently transfixed by the illuminated fountains. Look a little to the left of the lad and you can see a figure leaning casually against a railing. That's a security officer I do believe. However, look between the lad and the officer and you will make out what looks like a shadow. That is the boy's father. (OK,...that's an assumption on my part to be sure, but certainly it was a fellow who was serving as the boy's guardian for that brief moment in history--which now belongs to me and me alone, by the way, except for any memory of the moment that a witness or participant may retain--yet why should they, so mundane was the moment?)

The father did not record well on the image because this was a 30 second exposure and he was busying himself with apprehending the lad, among other custodial duties. Indeed, you can see that the wee lad is a bit vague, too. Yet he stood long enough before recapture to be recorded quite clearly. Having no tripod I set the camera on the ground to make the exposure a steady one. That's why the big foreground.

I took this with my Cheap-as-chips-challenge camera--a Konica Autoreflex TC and Konica Hexanon AR 50 f1.7 lens--equipped with Ilford Delta 100 film which I developed in Rodinal 1:25 for 9 minutes.