On September 18th, our class visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Joyce and I took interest in the photo shown above titled, “My Father Reading the Newspaper”, by Larry Sultan. This photo was taken in 1989. While many photos in the exhibit were quite gloomy in it’s color and lighting, this photo seemed to jump at you with it’s brightness and clearness. You can see the Sun peeking its way into the shot, and its strong affect on the light and dark contrast of the newspaper. Ironically, however much light shines through the glass door, you can’t seem to find the father’s face anywhere. Joyce and I found that the punctum in this photo is intangible. It is the absence of the father’s face in the photo. The focus of the photo, the newspaper, blocks all possibility to see the father’s face. Sultan teases you by showing you a reflection that just barely fails to capture any sign of what the father actually looked like. This is suggestive of a relationship where the father does not pay much attention to the son (Sultan) and where the son does not really know who the father is. Although they are so physically close, a simple newspaper is what it takes to take the father away from Sultan.