A group photograph can look united while recording a careful arrangement of distances.

A group photograph freezes a set of decisions about distance. Who stood by whom, who is at the edge, the small gaps and the small closings: all of it was arranged in seconds by people reading the room, and the resulting image looks simply like everyone together. The arrangement is data, and it is invisible unless you look for it.

Look at an old photograph of a group you were in and read the distances. It usually tells you something you knew and had not put into words. And in the present, notice where you place yourself, since your body often knows the state of a relationship before you have decided anything about it.