After the ongoing moment

At the end of The Ongoing Moment Geoff Dyer shows a photograph by Regina Fleming. The photograph, taken on September 11, 2001, shows the likeness of a man wearing a sign that reads

AFTER
DEATH
WHAT
? ?

Dyer has just finished detailing the emulsion of objects and scenes—hats, broken benches, barber shops—that make repeat appearances in the great photographs of America. He calls this repetition ‘the ongoing moment.’ What comes after this moment? After death, what?

If a photograph is a linear projection of the visual world, then the congruence between a hat in a photograph by Lange and it’s reappearance in a photograph by Evans is a projection of the world’s own congruence. The same subjects turning up in all these photographs is not a conscious choice of these photographers, but a consequence of how the world is structured. The world is filled with hats and benches, with fruit and gas stations, with fences and things colored orange. The world is also filled with cameras that are sometimes pointed at these things, and Dyer’s final question becomes: What do we photograph next?