A Smile Between Buses

I was traveling by bus in Cartagena while on a business trip.

We were going to visit a site when another bus came alongside ours.

A woman was sitting near its window.

Something about her presence caught my attention, so I reached for my camera.

When she first noticed me, I do not think she immediately understood that I wanted to make her photograph.

I raised the camera and gestured for her to smile.

Then she understood.

She turned toward me and smiled without hesitation.

I made the photograph from inside my bus while she remained inside hers.

We never spoke.

I did not know her name, where she was going, or whether our buses would remain beside one another for more than a few moments.

None of that prevented us from communicating.

The camera became the question.

Her smile became the answer.

We were strangers traveling in separate directions, but for the length of a smile, we understood one another.

Curatorially, A Smile Between Buses is strongest when read through relationships created by proximity, gesture, and shared space. The composition does not require a dramatic event to justify its place in the collection; its meaning develops through relationships inside the frame—distance, scale, structure, atmosphere, and the distribution of visual weight. That restraint is important. It allows the photograph to carry the theme of connection through form as well as through biography, giving the work an independent visual life while remaining connected to the artist’s experience.

We never spoke.

I noticed her from inside one bus while she sat inside another.

When I lifted the camera, she looked toward me without fully understanding what I intended.

Then I gestured for her to smile.

Her expression changed immediately.

In that moment, all the things separating us—the buses, the windows, the road, and the fact that we were strangers—became less important than the simple recognition passing between us.

The photograph is soft.

The light was limited, the lens was extended to its maximum reach, and I was making the image from one vehicle into another.

I could concentrate on those limitations.

Instead, I see the willingness in her response.

She understood what I was asking without hearing my voice.

She gave me the photograph.

I pressed the shutter.

Then our journeys continued.

Photography sometimes asks for patience and careful preparation.

At other times, it gives us only a few seconds to recognize another person and be recognized in return.

This was one of those seconds.

Preserved as the sixty-fourth accessioned photograph in the Francisco Colón Studio Photography Wing, A Smile Between Buses joins the People collection as a study of connection, observation, communication, and photographic spontaneity.

The photograph was created in Cartagena, Colombia, on November 10, 2015, during a business trip.

Colón was traveling by bus to a work-related site when he noticed a woman seated inside another bus positioned alongside his own.

The woman initially observed the photographer without appearing to understand his intention. Colón gestured for her to smile, and she responded directly toward the camera.

The resulting image represents a brief collaboration rather than an entirely unobserved candid photograph.

The two individuals did not exchange names or spoken words. Their communication occurred through recognition, gesture, expression, and the presence of the camera.

The original EXIF metadata records the image at 6:33:53 PM using a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and a Canon EF 28–135mm f/3.5–5.6 IS USM lens at its maximum 135mm focal length.

The photograph was recorded at ISO 3200 using evaluative metering and automatic white balance. The flash did not fire.

The long focal length, limited evening light, intervening vehicle windows, and possibility of movement contributed to the image's visible softness.

The photograph was revisited and restored in 2026. The restoration emphasized the woman's expression, tonal separation, and the environmental context while avoiding excessive sharpening that would misrepresent the conditions of the original capture.

Within the Studio archive, the photograph demonstrates that a portrait may be created through a moment of mutual understanding rather than formal preparation.

Its significance rests not upon technical perfection but upon the directness of the exchange and the generosity of the smile offered across the space between two buses.