Call Me
These miniature photo essays on doorbells that I’ve now been writing for years, perhaps a decade if not longer, tend toward the neutral. The subjects are mundane, and they are purposefully so. That is what catches my eye, and my imagination. Often what makes the images — and their subjects — interesting to me is less the human factor than what the elements have brought to bear. Then again, what the elements have done reflects, generally, a lack of concern on the part of humans — lack of concern itself being a human factor, perhaps a defining human factor. Taking no action, making a poor decision, not planning ahead — these are themselves examples of agency.
Every once in a while, though, there’s clearly a different sort of human factor at play. The “call me” seen here expresses an act of desperation, one that is unfamiliar from all the doorbells I’ve studied or, for that matter, glanced at over the years. Each letterform here is the result of multiple layers of scrawl, an emphatic cry; to see the letters is to hear the scratching. And if the urgency of the writing isn’t evidence enough, then the paperwork in the background — the trespassing notice, the additional material taped to the front door, the image of a municipal seal — along with the heavy chain and lock says that something life-altering has occurred.
A doorbell, at its most basic level, is a means for someone outside a home, or business, to send an audible signal to someone inside a building. Occasionally a doorbell will include some form of writing, in addition to an address or apartment number, often affixed with tape to a gate or door — such as instructions to delivery services, or a note that the bell itself has ceased functioning. Circumstances here, however, have turned a doorbell into a platform for communication in the opposite of its normal, intended direction — not a loudspeaker, more a bulletin board. Here, in stark contrast with mundane daily life, the doorbell has been repurposed by someone who has been removed from their home, and who needs to get a message out.
