She Was In On It

We had been traveling together as part of the same tour group.

Earlier that day, my daughter and I had been on the Rhine, taking a cruise I had wanted to experience for many years.

At some point later, our group stopped to eat.

When we came outside, this happened.

The woman in front of me raised her camera toward me.

Almost automatically, I raised mine toward her.

She photographed me while I photographed her.

There was no planning involved.

It was simply one of those moments when two people with cameras reacted to each other at almost the same time.

My daughter was standing right beside me.

She saw what was happening and started laughing.

That is what makes this photograph particularly important to me.

There are several people in the frame, and there is another photographer pointing her camera directly toward where I am standing.

But when I look at the photograph now, my eye eventually goes back to my daughter.

She was in on it.

She understood the humor of what was happening while it was happening, and I happened to photograph her reaction as part of the same moment.

We never exchanged photographs.

I never saw the picture the other woman made.

I only know the photograph I made.

And mine contains my daughter laughing beside me.

She Was In On It records a spontaneous exchange between photographers during Francisco Colón's 2014 journey through Germany with his daughter.

The central figure raises a camera directly toward the photographer's position while Colón simultaneously photographs her and the surrounding members of their tour group.

At the left edge of the composition, Colón's daughter is captured laughing during the exchange. Although the opposing camera establishes the immediate visual premise of the photograph, the daughter's reaction provides its strongest human connection.

The composition retains the informality of the encounter. Figures overlap, expressions vary across the frame, and the surrounding architecture, vegetation and street environment remain visible rather than being simplified into a formal portrait.

Colón photographed the scene at 28mm, the widest focal length available on the lens, placing the viewer physically close to the group and reinforcing the immediacy of the interaction.

The photograph is also notable for what remains unseen.

The woman facing Colón appears to have made a photograph from the opposite direction during the same exchange. Because the two photographers never exchanged images, the contents and survival of that reciprocal photograph remain unknown.

What survives in Colón's archive is this side of the encounter, including his daughter's visible reaction to it.

I remember this moment vividly.

Part of that is because it was funny.

Someone pointed a camera at me, I pointed mine back at her, and for a fraction of a second we were both photographer and subject.

But that is not the part that means the most to me now.

My daughter is.

When I look at this photograph, I see her laughing beside me.

She was not simply standing nearby while something happened between two photographers.

She was part of the moment.

She saw the humor in it.

We never exchanged photographs with the other woman, so I never saw what she photographed from her side.

Perhaps I was the only person in her frame.

Perhaps there was more.

I cannot know.

What I do know is what my camera preserved from my side.

It preserved the woman photographing me.

It preserved some of the people with whom we had shared the day's journey.

And it preserved my daughter laughing.

That trip to Germany had begun partly as a return.

I wanted to show my daughter places connected to where we had lived when she was born.

But the trip did not remain only about returning to old places.

We created new memories together.

The Rhine cruise was new to both of us, and my daughter still remembers that journey as one of her best.

This photograph is one small part of it.

The photograph made from the other side was never mine to keep.

This one was.

And my daughter is in it.

Preserved as the one hundred fortieth accessioned photograph in the Francisco Colón Studio Photography Wing, She Was In On It was made in Germany on June 21, 2014.

The photograph belongs to the same journey during which Colón returned to Germany with his daughter, revisiting a country connected to their earlier family history while also creating experiences that were new to both of them.

Earlier that day, father and daughter traveled along the Rhine River on a cruise Colón had wanted to experience for many years.

Following a meal with members of their tour group, a spontaneous photographic exchange occurred outside the restaurant. A woman traveling with the group raised her camera toward Colón as he simultaneously photographed her.

Colón's daughter, standing close beside him, is captured laughing during the encounter.

Although the opposing cameras provide the photograph's immediate visual structure, the work ultimately centers on connection rather than photographic novelty.

The image preserves not simply one photographer photographing another, but a daughter's reaction within a shared journey that remained meaningful to both father and daughter years later.

The reciprocal photograph made from the opposite position was never exchanged and remains outside the Studio archive.