Ready to Go

I made this photograph on July 22, 2015, while sitting in the lobby of a Marriott Hotel in El Salvador.

I was waiting for transportation to take me to see a customer.

When I went searching through my archives for this photograph, I knew exactly why I wanted to find it.

The details were important.

My bag was sitting beside my feet. I was wearing dress shoes. I had my tie on. I was dressed and ready to work.

For years, international business travel meant airports, hotels, taxis, customers, meetings, and then doing it all again somewhere else.

There were many moments like this one.

You would get dressed in the hotel room, gather what you needed for the day, go downstairs, and wait.

The meeting had not started yet.

The taxi had not arrived yet.

But the workday had already begun.

Looking at the photograph now, that is what I see.

I was ready to go.

Ready to Go documents the professional routine that existed behind Francisco Colón's years of international travel.

Rather than depicting a customer meeting, an airport, or a recognizable landmark, the photograph records the interval immediately before the work itself: a traveler seated in a hotel lobby, dressed professionally, his business bag beside him, waiting for transportation.

The visible details carry the narrative.

The tie, polished shoes, business attire, and bag establish purpose without requiring the customer or meeting to appear within the frame.

The photograph therefore shifts attention from destination to preparation—from where the traveler was going to the state of being ready to go.

Within the Journeys collection, the work expands the record of travel beyond movement between countries. It preserves the routines that made those journeys possible.

Travel is often remembered through destinations.

Cities. Airports. Hotels. Customers. Meetings.

But much of a traveling life is spent in the spaces between those things.

Waiting for the car. Waiting in the lobby. Checking that everything is in the bag. Knowing where you need to be next.

Nothing dramatic is happening in this photograph.

That may be why it matters.

The shoes are on. The tie is in place. The bag is ready.

For a few minutes, there is nothing left to do except wait.

Then the car arrives.

And the day begins.

Preserved as the thirty-ninth accessioned photograph in the Francisco Colón Studio Photography Wing, Ready to Go documents the working routine behind the artist's international business travel.

Created at a Marriott Hotel in El Salvador on July 22, 2015, the photograph records the period immediately before departure for a customer visit.

Its first-person composition emphasizes personal evidence rather than destination: business attire, dress shoes, tie, and work bag establish the professional purpose of the journey.

Ready to Go expands the Journeys collection by documenting not simply geographic movement, but the preparation, waiting, and repeated routines that existed between hotel and customer.