Waiting

Look at the photo. I took it a few weeks ago, when I visited a concert in Dortmund in Germany. The concert was excellent and one of the best I ever heard, but that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the photo.
The photo is very interesting, I think. I have taken it in the entrance hall of the concert house, so the hall where you come, when you enter the building. In the background you can see photos of artists who have performed in the hall in the past. I recognise the French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, one of my favourites (third photo from the left). It’s a pity that he’ll not sing this evening, though he certainly would have fit in the cast, which performed Nicola Porpora’s opera Carlo il Calvo. What’s just outside the photo are the bar, where you can buy a drink, and the box office and information desk. However, most interesting is not the entrance hall itself and what you find there but the people in the hall.
In the centre of the photo, two attendants are standing behind a desk in front of the door that leads to the auditorium. They’ll check the tickets, when the visitors go to their seats. On the right, two women come from the toilet room. In the centre, in front of the attendants, a couple is standing near a table. They look bored. More to the left, a couple looks at something one of them has in his or her hands. Is it the programme of the concert? Apparently, they are talking about it. Far left, groups of people are talking with each other. In the foreground you can see two other attendants with things around their necks: they sell programme booklets. A woman opens her handbag. She wants to buy a booklet. Behind this woman, a man has two glasses with wine in his hands. Are both glasses for himself? One glass will be for the woman in front of him, although she makes the impression to ignore him. Then, a little bit more to the right, a man is reading in a programme booklet. The glass of wine on his table is already empty. His wife seems to be bored.
I’ll leave it to you to describe what the other people in the entrance hall are doing. All these people seem to do different things. In a sense this is true. Nevertheless, their activities – if you can call them activities – have one thing in common: the people in the hall are waiting. The concert has not yet begun, you cannot yet enter the auditorium and you have come well in advance, so that you need not to be in a hurry. The consequence is that you have to wait, and that you must fill the time that you are waiting. Each person does it in a different way. Some enjoy drinking a glass of wine. Others buy a program booklet and read yet some information about the concert. Again others have a social talk with partner, friends or acquaintances. Others are bored. Only the programme sellers are not really waiting but they are actively working.
I think that waiting is one of the most underestimated and ignored human activities. I have searched for studies about it on the internet, but I couldn’t find them. Nevertheless, we spend much time in life on waiting! Many people find it boring and look for useful activities to fill their waiting time. In the entrance hall, you buy a programme booklet and maybe you find yet some information there about the concert that you didn’t know. You drink a glass of wine, not because you are thirsty but because you simply enjoy it, and it fills your time. Other people “work” on their social contacts: they are networking. It’s not that they are preparing business contracts, but just talking with others helps maintaining their social relations. Again others don’t know what to do: they are bored.
I can say a lot more about this photo; about what the people there are doing and what the meaning of what they are doing is. However, I think that you understand what I want to say. At first sight, the photo seems to show nothing that is worth to talk about. Maybe, technically it is a good photo, but why would you take a photo of a group of people standing together or apart in a hall? Upon closer understanding, however, this photo is not trivial at all. It shows one of the most common pastimes in life and how we fill it: waiting. This photo also shows that all waiting is not the same, even when we are waiting for the same, which is a concert in this case. For some waiting is being bored; for others it is reading the programme booklet; for again others it is social talk; etc. All these activities are not activities of their own, but they are ways of waiting. In this sense, this photo captures in one image a sociological theory, a theory of waiting (a theory that must yet be written, though). The photo shows real life; life as it is.
By the way, I took this photo because I, too, was waiting for the concert and I didn’t know what else to do than taking this photo. Also this photo is waiting. The photo depicts itself.