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Tod Papageorge's best shot
'I assume they are father and son - but there's no way of knowing for sure'

What struck me first about this scene was the odd ritual-like circle of sticks and soda cans. I had no idea why somebody would compose something like that. It was dusk in Central Park in the early spring of 1980,scarpe tod's, and I was on my way back to my apartment.
Then I saw the father and the son. He was combing the boy's hair. I assume it's his son, but there is no way of knowing that, of course. I would guess it was a last-minute brush-up before they went home. I felt at the time that they weren't American - it just seemed like something an American wouldn't do.
There was a kind of poetic connection, I thought, between the ritualistic little circle and the ritual of the father combing his son's hair. It seemed to me something that a photograph could put together. But I realised as I went to make it that only if we saw the comb against the boy's head - not lost in the father's hand, or above him - would the picture have the clarity that it should, in order to have any meaning at all.
It was a question of trying to anticipate that moment, and then capture it on film with a slow shutter speed and a relatively clumsy medium-format camera. It was a challenging thing to do.
Certainly, the action is at the compelling centre of [this picture], but the trees that are bare of leaves, and the circle, are the kind of incidental details that contribute to a coherent meaning. Even at the father's and son's feet you can see a split branch, almost pointing at the two of them - one generation passing on something to the next. It happened in a matter of seconds, but the picture makes it feel for ever.
Curriculum vitae
Born: Portsmouth,tod's scarpe uomo, New Hampshire, 1940
Studied: "A basic photography class at college,tods scarpe, and then I worked with Garry Winogrand."
Inspirations: "Mozart is my great hero. But Eugène Atget, Garry Winogrand, Robert Frank and Brassaï have all had a tremendous effect."
High point: "In 1970, the telegram telling me that I'd got a Guggenheim fellowship. It was a telegram because there was a mail strike on."
Low point: "When my ############## in New York closed, and I didn't have a way of showing, so things languished."
Pet hate: "There's an assumption today that if something is in colour, and the print is as big as a Velázquez, then it somehow has aesthetic value. That's my peeve."
Dream subject: "Rome. Or even your wonderful London."
· American Sports, 1970 by Tod Papageorge is available now