Visual Ballads

I know we are not supposed to answer our critics but a person came to my art show and  Said I was perpetrating negative stereotypes about gay men. That gay men are sad and lonely. If I had photographed “abs, dicks and butt cheeks” I would be celebrated but I photographed my neighbors and some can’t handle reality. The person went on to say these images shouldn’t be up for public viewing.

1)       I think the viewer was pushing his own personal fears onto the images.

2)      These are pictures of real people to say they shouldn’t be seen is saying that these characters that live in the local area shouldn’t be seen. That we should sweep under the rug what we don’t find attractive about our community.

3)      I can only photograph what I understand about myself, if the images are lonely it’s a shared loneliness. I photographed a wide range of locals from an 18 year old to a man who is 75, they share the same solitude. This body of work is about unity.  

4)      These pictures are a 125^th of a second snap shot of the sitter. The sitters don’t live in these spaces; I’m only using the sitters as music notes to write my own song.

5)      And like music we listen to ballads to celebrate our loneness, isolation and solitude but I’m not a singer I’m a photographer and these images are my visual ballads.