I found these two outside the Buena Grocery Store near the El. This store was across the street from Buena Circle Park and was a common hangout for kids in the summer time. I call this image “Girl Teasing Boy” because she was about a year or two older than him and about a head taller. As I put the camera up to my eye, she bent her knees so that he would appear taller than she was. However, she left her arm around his shoulders. The awkwardness of it all made them both laugh. I smile every time I see this picture. It’s one of my favorite from the four years I spent photographing in Uptown during the mid-1970s. A reader called to tell me that the girl was the daughter of the grocery store’s owner and that the boy was part of a large family from Kentucky.
