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13 files, last one added on Apr 13, 2009

Around the time of his fifteenth birthday in 1990, our son Isaac developed a serious curvature of his spine. Isaac has autism – a limited ability to communicate. Surgery was recommended. In an attempt to help him understand the surgery, we bought him a Polaroid Spectra camera. We hoped to use it to show him what was happening to his back and to record the people and places he encountered around the surgery. Somewhat to our surprise, the camera became his constant companion at family events - a tool for him to order his world.

Because I wanted the images to be printed large enough to make the captioned photos in his albums “readable”, this work was done on an 8x10 camera with film subsequently scanned, adjusted and printed. Isaac was photographed in roughly ten sessions in my studio producing 75 images. The process would begin with him and me going through an album and selecting two or three page pairs. This sort of decision-making is very difficult for him. He has a very limited non-verbal vocabulary. I had to coach him to change his expression in these pictures. His default is a forced grin he learned in kindergarten when the teacher insisted he “smile for the camera”. As difficult as some of these tasks were, including not moving once the camera was set, he completely enjoyed his part of doing the project and continues to ask when we will do it again.

This project is a record of Isaac and his photographs. It is a great success story for this young man as a survivor of his five-hour scoliosis surgery and, even more, his ability to overcome his limitations and build a life independent from his parents. It is a history and a tribute to the family members and friends who are no longer with us that live in his albums. But, that is not why I did it. The project is about telling your story with a limited palette – language, both verbal and written – body language – photographs. It is about the discomfort and frustration of using every tool you have and still not being understood.

I have searched for the common tie between this work and my other photographs – the unrecognizable and anonymous people in my east coast and city images, the mystery of the “other side” in my booths and fences and the other work, finished and in-progress. The great photography teacher, Freeman Patterson once said, “We all photograph our childhood.” My memories of growing up were of the awkward, miss-understood, fat kid. In the end, in spite of our different abilities, Isaac’s challenge to be heard is mine as well.

18 files, last one added on Oct 02, 2008

This work is part an ongoing project about the structures we make to hold the public at bay. It began by looking at people in and around booths and expanded to larger spaces enclose by fences. In either case, these are dividers between the insiders and the rest of us. Like cages in a zoo, it is not always clear whether are keeping the “animals” in or the “people” out. Often, they are no more than vending machines that are “mechanized” by the people inside. They offer protection and separation. They are confining. They raise questions about what these spaces say and how they say it. I find that frequently my photography looks at how our environment is the message. All of us who inhabit that environment - whatever we might believe - are personally incidental. Someone else can replace us and the story remains the same.

20 files, last one added on Apr 13, 2009