Frame Four

What it looks like, and what it does

A strip of four black-and-white photographs: a woman laughing, laughing, turning, and in the fourth a pale shape leaning over her shoulder, face tilted, a hand raised near hers. Curtain edges. The flash blown white.

Appears only in the final frame. Moves nearer on each visit. Is not in the booth when the curtain is drawn.

What is known

Strips from the booth at Calder Station show the pattern: three frames of the sitter, and a fourth with a second figure. Strips taken on later days show the figure nearer.

On the fourth strip it stands beside the sitter, face turned to them, and the sitter's expression is of recognition. No one who has had four strips taken has been willing to say who it is.

What it can do

• Appears in the fourth frame of a photo-booth strip
• Approaches by a stride with each repeated sitting

Where it stops

• Appears only to a sitter who has used the same booth before
• Does not appear on digital cameras

An encounter

Fisher kept the strips in order on her kitchen table. In the last she looked at the figure and smiled. “I know who that is,” she said to the photographer who had been sent to interview her. He asked who. She looked at him for a moment, and then, kindly, did not say.

Bronwen Fisher, sitter, Photo booth, Calder Station concourse, Four visits over three weeks

What is established, and what is only said

• established: Nineteen strips from eleven sitters show the pattern. No figure appears in frames one to three.
• incomplete: Of the nine sitters who completed four visits, none can be reached for comment.
• interpretation: It may be approaching. It may be being approached.

Still unresolved

The booth is the only one of its type in the city. It was installed in 1974. The first strip in its file shows the figure at the very back of the cubicle, a long way away.

Where it has been recorded

• Calder Station (confirmed) — Recorded by Bronwen Fisher, sitter.

Connected entities

• Passenger Eleven — Both are visible only in glass or emulsion, and both are counted by machines that nobody has asked to count them.
• The Face in the Flock — Both are faces that come toward the person they resemble. Both are older than they should be.
• The Unlit Window — Both are places in a lit scene where something looks back. Neither has ever been seen to move.