Documentary
For me, documentary photography has never been to simply record, to simply document, but also to relate. To engage with people and their environment and to let the subject tell their own story, as much as possible. To document without interpretation is impossible; to document without understanding does an injustice to the subject.
BOUND AND ALONE - A young boy sits alone in a state hospital ward, bound at the wrist to a chair. Early in 'modern' society's dealing with mental illness, with little knowledge and less experience, the answer as to how to handle the problem seemed to be to remove the mentally ill from society at large and isolate them in a controlled environment, in mental hospitals. These 'hospitals' were little more than warehouses, with abuse common. In the mid-seventies, with the science of psychology barely 100 yrs. old, mental hospitals had changed little. This image is from that time.
OUTSIDE IN - A patient at a state psychiatric hospital gazes forlornly out a window, as a man looks in quizzically from a television set. Early in 'modern' society's dealing with mental illness, with little knowledge and less experience, the answer as to how to handle the problem seemed to be to remove the mentally ill from society at large and isolate them in a controlled environment, in mental hospitals. These 'hospitals' were little more than warehouses, with abuse common. In the mid-seventies, with the science of psychology barely 100 yrs. old, mental hospitals had changed little. This image is from that time.
DISPLACED VET - The cost-cutting de-institutionalization of American psychiatric hospitals in the early 1980's abruptly left many former residents living in low-rent housing, fending for themselves with little or no public assistance.
DISPLACED COUPLE - The cost-cutting de-institutionalization of American psychiatric hospitals in the early 1980's abruptly left many former residents living in low-rent housing, fending for themselves with little or no public assistance.
CARNIES - Posing with the tools of their trade, two carnies stand in front of their booth at a carnival in Athens, Ohio.
CLASSROOM LINE-UP - Students await the start of class at l'Ecole Methodiste in Petionville (Port-au-Prince), Haiti. There are no public schools in Haiti; many are run by churches, but all require tuition, and uniforms are common.
LAST DAY OF SCHOOL - Students gather in front of their school as their principal addresses them on the last day of school before summer vacation, Verrettes, Haiti.
WOMAN & HOME - A woman proudly poses in front of her home in Fondwa, Haiti. Erosion exposed tree roots serve as a make-shift cutting board.
FARMER, MATENWA - A farmer in Matenwa, on the island of La Gonave, Haiti poses in front of his home as he tends his corn crop. With poor, rocky soil and limited rainfall, subsistence farming is difficult, at best.
WOMAN, PORT-AU-PRINCE - A Haitian woman strikes a defiant pose in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
FARMER, GROS MORN - A farmer poses by a shuttered window in Gros Morn, Haiti. He was the recipient of a business loan from Fonkoze, a micro-enterprize development bank in Haiti.
MOTHER AND TWINS - A proud and happy mother poses with her two young boys outside the Quash Ward at the Hospital Albert Schwitzer in Deschappelles, Haiti. Recovering from malnutrition, the boys hands are wrapped to prevent them from removing the feeding tubes.
ORPHAN GIRL - A young orphan girl poses in front of the small home that serves as an orphanage in Fondwa, Haiti. Many children in Haitian orphanages are there not because they are unwanted, but because their parents can not afford to support them.
RESTAVEK, SEN FELIX - A young girl, a restavek, poses in the window of the home where she lives. A restavek (or restavec) is a child in Haiti who is sent away by their parents to work for a host household as a domestic servant because the parents lack the resources required to support the child. Parents unable to care for children may send them to live with wealthier (or less poor) families, often their own relatives or friends. The expectation is that the children will be given food and housing (and sometimes an education) in exchange for doing housework. However, many restaveks live in poverty, may not receive proper education, and are at grave risk for physical, emotional, and sexual abuse
AFTERNOON ESCAPE - A July afternoon in Haiti gets pretty hot, and for young boys, with school out for the summer, the surf beckons. This was taken from a pier in Jacmel, a town on the southern coast, and one of Haiti's main tourist destinations. The small freighter was shipwrecked in a storm several years previously.
NET FISHING, CAP HATIEN - Fishermen use nets at dawn to ply the waters off Cap Haitien, Haiti in a small boat stoically named Se Lavie.
MOUNTAINSIDE FARMING - Students on their way to school in their brightly colored uniforms pass through terraced fields on a mountainside in Fondwa, Haiti.
TO THE FIELDS AT DAWN - A lone farmer rides his donkey past a shack at dawn on his way to tend his fields, Fondwa, Haiti.
TIMES SQUARE MONKS - Two Buddhist monks pose for their portrait amidst the bustle of Times Square, New York.