The camera can lie, but it can also capture what is too instant for the eye to see. I have plenty of images seconds apart from this one where he was smiling. What went through his mind?
You sum up the value of this image as much as I can, Kal. The icongruity is in the serious expression while riding an amusement ride that is supposed to be fun. The abstraction is in the blur. The human value I see here is bewilderment. This is a very expressive portrait because it conveys an essence of this child.
Phil, I once saw an article by a child photographer (can't remeber the name) who commented that images of unsmiling children were more enduring. They were not a snapshot, but in someway looked in to the soul of the child. It is the incongruity of this image that makes it for me. This is a lucky shot, I had five pictures, four of utter pleasure and then this one. Again if you think it would help I can post one of the other images for comparison. Both had abstraction, and human values (though those values appear different in each of the images), but this one has incongruity.