Okey, now I also read the rest of the artist statement, and it gives a much bigger depth to it. Now I understand more and I want to see more. Thanks a lot for sharing!

Bjarte

Thomas

All the best

Petteri

I was immediately struck by the way that the photographer captured the deepest, innermost feelings of these people. There is a strong sense of trust between the photographer and the subjects. You can look into the people’s eyes and see/feel what’s going on. Eyes often tell the story.

nice work..
and my heart goes out to this family and others suffering such hardships..

Bob, What happened to you father should never happen to anyone in this Country and our leaders should be ashamed!!! someone posted this on my facebook a couple of days ago and it reads so true ” No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.”

first of all, a big congratulations on publishing the Mallinger family story. I too was deeply moved by the photographs for both photographic/emotional reasons and personal. Some of the most moving and powerful photographs wrung my heart, as given the context, we’re left realing from the sadness and weight and tremendous responsibility of caring for a loved one, losing a loved one and still trying to bully up the foundations of the life that had been set in place. The photograph of Mr. Mallinger sitting on the examination table is an extraordinary one…everything that this story conveys and contains is suggested in that image: his wife’s mortality, his loneliness, the weight of the burden of the circumstanes, his own mortality, his herculian strength and the expression caught in the hunch of his brows, and the his determination and will to shoulder this and to resist despair…it is an extraordinary image of a profund moment…..

Not only was i moved by their story and difficulty, but i felt the text was important too. While the focus of the image is the illness of Mrs. Mallinger, and that this entails, we do get resonances of other consequences, which sneak into the images…the extraordiary opening image, as if the House of Usher, with Mr. Mallinger and his son, the condo steeped in shadow and dreary rain slick light, sitting alone beneath the very-florida-condo painting, the dual reflection on the lanai porch….all of this suggests that what was once a support (the home) for this family, bares the risk of salvaging away….And the text absolutely contextualized for me the additional consequnces of this family’s tremendous ill fortune. Actually, i did NOT want pictures that literalize the financial crisis, because once you’ve offered that to us in the way of background, we see it there in the images…for example photo #6…and elsewhere, small pivots of detail, that once i knew the backstory made perfect sense…for me, a good text should never explain pictures per se, but provide either detail that is additional/supplementary or poetic reaction. I’m thinkin of that remarkable story that Tom Hyde shaed with us (and was posted a A Photo Editor) about the multimple amputee in virginia. the 10,000 word essay provided additinal information that was not ‘in the pictures’ but allowed us to dig further into the story of that young woman’s remarkable ordeal. So too here. The most significant event is unfolding in front of our eyes, and you, as a journalist, have shared with us the additional consequences of this family’s ordeal, something that not everyone would immediately understand…for me, the best of texts surves to add, to supplement, to compliment images, to offer a double narrative: that of the spoken and that of the visual….and i received both here….

I hope you continue to keep us posted on the journey that this family endures and i wish them the best. On a personal note, this story hit profoundly close to home. In 1999, my father had a major heart attack and he was uninsured. Two years later, he had a second heart attack. Subsequently, he lost everything he’d worked his life for: his home, his life’s savings, his small inheritance from my grandmother and grandaunt and he left his retirement and now lives in a tiny 1 room apartment, in florida, and works in a small office and will, has he always reminds, have to work the length of this days…everything that he’d hoped to free himself and give his grandchildren, gone. though has i remind him continually, he has what is most important, his health and his family.

A timely timely story in a moment and age when Americans, most americans, fail to see the failure o their nation in terms of protecting people from their most basic need: the welfare of their families….

a simple and unadorned and powerful story told with humility and grace.

thank you for sharing michael. I wish the Mallinger’s strength and endurance and love…

bob

Though I do agree with the comments that the pictures themselves do not tell the story in the text (about middle class going broke “just like that”). Basically, if Howard still had his home and the insurance to cover the costs of illness, every picture would still be valid. Like Patricia did, I think it is a point well worth bringing about.

I must also say that my first reaction (to the text) is : what is the story behind them not being insured, or not being covered, not having some medicare kick in? This is my main problem with the essay: we are made to feel as if Howard’s case needs no such specific information. Just as we would, rightly so this time, need no specific behind the picture of a starving orphan ina country ravaged by war.

I also agree with Marcin. More than 71% in the world do not even have paychecks, or medicare. With no recourse to bankruptcy as well, needless say.

you may remember that when we were editing Falling Into Place there were some very important things in your mind and in your life that just did not pictures make….most great essays are very very narrow in their photographic representations of all that may be deemed “important”…pull your favorite books off the shelf …make a list of facts hypothetically pertinent to that book…i think you will see what i mean….most great books show only a small part of the “whole story” as does your book…

particularly in pure photojournalistic essays, as Michael’s, which are generally a marriage of words and pictures…and like any marriage, there are different roles to play….words do some things, pictures do others…

of course, if Michael had a very strong picture that somehow represented the financial situation he is in or the fact that his electricity is off, then surely that would be fine…but, by your own words, you were struck by the visual essay itself until you read the text and then you started wanting more, not based on emotional grounds but on academic grounds……surely a gratuitous picture of Howard looking at his bills would certainly not work even if the financial situation is an important fact in his life…photographers would do well to not think of the a, b, c’s of anything…

think about this…the strongest photographs in this essay are not something you probably would have thought about by reading words and making a list..

for example, take the picture of Howard sitting on the examining table..such a strong photograph, yet not purely “illustrative” of anything said in words…if you had read Michaels words , i doubt you would have said “hmmmm, Michael i think you should have a picture of Howard sitting on an examining table”…that picture came from being a sensitive photographer , being visual, not from ticking off a list….

photographers should of course be aware of all of the “facts”, yet i do not think every single fact requires an accompanying photograph…the very best photographs do what words can never do and the very best words do what photographs can never do…

you wrote “To me, the story told in that wordless way was powerful enough.”…i think perhaps you were right the first time…

cheers, david

best
kathleen

All that is what I saw by simply looking at your photos with no background or explanation. To me, the story told in that wordless way was powerful enough.

So then I read your text. Yes, it filled out the picture and made their situation even more heartwrenching, but I wished you’d been able to show hints of the financial crisis in images rather than in words alone. Would this still be possible? Even a picture of him looking over the bills might help. Is his electricity still off? If so, how could you show that?

Any details you can show to help the viewer see the connection between this man’s situation and the economic crisis would enrich the essay, so you don’t have to depend solely on your text to tell that part of the story.

Your photography is superb. Thank you for taking on such a timely subject and giving it a human face.

Patricia