The photograph’s aging, eccentric-looking protagonist calls to mind a prophet or a gatekeeper; one who, lonely and outside the establishment, predicts the future or preaches at the gate. The sword stuck in his back infuses the entire scene with a mythical air. In a theatrical moment differentiated from the sequence of everyday life, the pensive “prophet” ostensibly draws attention to the very act of thinking, only a part of which is revealed to the viewer through the iconographic correspondence with the past.