Thursday, June 29, 2006

Faces of Poverty


Many people who know my work may be surprised at this project. In the past, I have done a lot of different types of photography, including portraiture, modeling portfolios and experimental. However, most of my favorite work seemed to deal with the minimalist or "spiritual" landscape, along the lines of photographer Minor White. I like playing with the flatness of the photograph, as the camera abstracts the three dimensions of life into the simple tones and shapes on the surface of the image. To put it simply, I like the fomal aspects of the photograph.
In the summer of 05, I recieved an email telling about a photo exhibit called "The faces of Poverty in Virginia", sponsored by the Virginia Poverty Law Center in Richmond . I had never entered anything like this, but was intrigued by the challenge to enter a show that was to be published into a book and become a travelling exhibit touring the state. It was probably a little bit of cockiness also, as I had just won "best in show" at several regional exhibits in the area, and I wanted to see how far this trend would take me.
I only had a week before the deadline, but the challenge intrigued me, so I began. An idea that had always tempted me was to do an essay on storefront churches. There are a number of them in this area, primarily in poorer neighborhoods of Norfolk, Portsmouth and Suffolk. I was interested, I think, in this idea because of what I percieved as the juxtaposition of hope and hopelessness.
Through this work, I became acquainted with an incredibly passionate and hard working women, Pastor Mary Jones, pastor of "The Church of Holy Deliverance" in Downtown Norfolk. She, among many other things, offers food bank distribution to the people of this area.




















I sent in 10 images, and 4 were selected for the exhibit, The Faces of Poverty in Virginia. No awards, but in the show. I was thrilled to be a part of a project like this, that would attempt to assist the invisible people in this area in their search for a better life.

The funny thing about this all, as I was looking at the exhibit during the opening at Richmond, I was struck by 2 things ... one, I was in a pretty good show here. The second thing was that I saw something in my work I did not like... a somewhat cold, dispassionate perspective. It was as if I were observing, but not participating in the life of these people. That bothered me. And I set out to change it, if I could.