Though it may be tempting to think that the deepest meaning of these photographs, perhaps even their ultimate point, is to be found beneath the surface of what they plainly show, Báez reminds us time and again how resolutely photographic they are, how thoroughly they are inscribed with the materiality of their making. Put differently, these pictures insist not only on the moment captured at the release of the shutter, they also vividly evoke the moments preceding it and those that followed. Time and duration—how they feel and how Báez registers them—are as crucial to these pictures as are their capacities for metaphor.
