Photos #6 and #12 definitely add to the story of contemporary drug use in this country. #13 speaks volumes about this family being torn apart by it.

Blankets are nailed to all the windows, a single light bulb
illuminates a gaunt man sitting on a stool. He is naked
except for a white pair of boxer shorts. He is injecting
himself in his right arm but his attention is not on this;
around his head is a contraption made from jeweller’s
glasses and Velcro, a small metal arm juts out from the
left of this machine on which a safety pin has been glued,
on the end of the pin he has impaled a cockroach.
Focus. Shoot. Wait.

Photograph: time unknown.

Foreground, a young man shirtless, tattooed, faces a
mirror with his teeth bared, metal wires are entwined
through his teeth to clamp his jaws together, in his right
hand, which is raised to his mouth, he holds a red-
handled pair of wire cutters.

Photograph: colour.

Top of the frame a girl’s bowed head, her left arm extends to
the forefront, it is covered in a series of precise lacerations,
in her right hand she holds a pair of surgical tweezers
with which she is pulling from one of the lacerations a
small green aphid.

Photograph: evening.

Monterey pier, interior of a camper van shot from the
front, and in the background on both sides of the van
are piled cages containing dogs. In the driver’s seat an
overweight man leans over the thighs of a young boy, one
hand is pulling up the boys white t-shirt, the boy’s head is
tilted back staring at the roof, his right arm rests outside
the passenger window, a burning cigarette between two
fingers.

-Christopher Wilson, Horse latitudes.

Do we even need cameras?

People can change, once they understood their mistakes.

I am convinced that in the future, if looking for the pictures of people, some patterns are expected – including pictures being drunk – if they do not exist, there is some manipulated history. We are entering an era of transparency, which could become like a raw file in photography. I don’t know, which is better.

Jim’s kittens and drug analogy may be a bit extreme

“People are losing jobs and not getting jobs every day because of stuff on the Internet.”

Jim,

Stop being so easily swayed by what you see on the internet. In fact, stop looking. Learn to judge people by the personal interactions you have. Learn to “read” people. What you described above is utterly childish behavior. No thinking involved.

“You hope not? And what if they do regret it? What if there are jobs and opportunities and relationships lost because this story is out there? And then what? You are the one in power here. You made the decision to shoot the photos and set them free on the Internet. You have responsibility here. And, the best you can say is “I hope not.””

And what if, 20 years from now, they feel this essay to be one of the best things that happened in their lives? What if they think it made clear to them just what was happening, and gave them motivation to move forward? What if they also see it as something that enabled them not only to help themselves, but others too? What if someone in a position of power sees this, sees the progress Christopher has told us about, feels a desire to help and so provides opportunity that otherwise would have been missed?

You may not think this likely, but I think it is every bit and perhaps even more likely than the scenario you have laid out.

Surely you are right about how much attitudes toward gender issues, and to some extent racial issues, have changed in America in the last three decades, and there is far more tolerance for public exposure of sexuality in general. But let’s not forget that at the same time, America has more people in prisons than any other country, and most of them are there on drug-related offenses.

We also live in a very litigious world, and most institutional and private employers are increasingly concerned about being held responsible for potential acts by their employees… this is not schoolmarmish nor authoritarian on their part, it is merely cautious and realistic in their situation.

I see the people of the 50s and 60s living in a world of equal rights (almost!) for the LGBT community (certainly much much more than they ever knew!), a black President, a woman sec of state, openly gay members of congress, television characters sharing the same bed (haha! remember Rob and Laura Petrie?) … etc… sure, there is plenty to be discouraged about but also reason for (a little?) optimism.

No giving in to the schoolmarms or authoritarians!

You know that I have great respect for you and so if I must take a somewhat different stance, I hope you won’t be personally offended. What you say about the world becoming more forgiving in terms of overlooking the peccadilloes of people’s personal pasts is only half true and is a very optimistic view.. the other side of that contradiction is that never before have such vast and deep files on nearly everybody existed or been so accessible to all kinds of people one has to deal with… not just prospective employers, law enforcement officials, credit agencies, landlords, bankers, insurance companies, health management companies, the phone company, driver’s license bureaus, etc., etc., and of course good old Homeland Security looming over all of them…
You are partly right in a way that there are so many people who are on record with some infraction or other that society has had to become in general more permissive just to find enough people to fill various jobs, etc. But it is neither a just nor rational system, and any of the things in your record or my record may potentially put you on someone’s blacklist… and it is usually very difficult, expensive, and time consuming to get off those blacklists, and in some cases impossible. And standards differ greatly… in one context, having a traceable past as a drug addict or as a felon may not prevent you from getting a job, but there are professions you would be barred from in various states, and you would automatically be denied entry into any number of countries…
We should all we aware that, especially in the US, but in fact everywhere these days, there are enormous state-run intelligence nets that are constantly trolling search algorithms through oceans of data to turn up profiles of people who might someday be a potential threat (or just an inconvenience) to authority structures… and all that information rarely goes away or is purged, it is just expanded upon.
People who grew up in the 1950s or 1960s, once they had experienced the permissiveness of the 1970s in America, never could have dreamed of how conservative the country would subsequently become. Your hopefulness that in the future America may be more tolerant is a noble one, but it may just as easily be disappointed by the possibility of the US, and many other countries, turning into even worse police states than they already are.

You make judgments on the person in front of you and how they conduct themselves. You don’t look at past “indiscretions”, even if they are recent, and decide from that. The people doing the interviewing or judging likely have similar histories.

The old codger thinking is dying out thankfully. Same sex marriage, legalized marijuana, silly/foolish Facebook histories… the normalization and rational understanding of these things is becoming greater (though slower than I’d prefer!) and soon we’ll look back and think how ridiculous these backwards thinking judgments were.

I hope, anyway.

very very pleased, that Christopher has jumped in…always lovely to read and hear such thoughtful and compelling comments from the author :)

that’s all i guess i really every wanted to say ;)

the work is strong though like others, what i wish to have from a story such as Christopher’s is not so much the documenting of the act of the particulars of this kind of life (the photos of the drug usage itself, which seem less real about the realities that accompany such torment, for example), though i too found the shot of the partner shooting up in the car powerful and insightful in a way that other stories on drug use seem to seldom offer (for all its visual/existential contradictions of that extraordinary shot, ‘visitor’), but the struggles and the momentary flights of real joy and crushing sorrow attendant…and this respect, the images of the family and of the couple grip me most hard….

but, most importantly is Christopher’s thoughtful and carrying reply to the questions posed above that, for me, best explain and illumination intent…not the intention of a photographer once again working their bones on the periphery of others lives, but in a commitment to tell a story of a family for whom he wishes to care and in that telling lay the intent of both these documents and the hopes they may nourish….as a photographer and viewer, and more importantly a person, that articulation is what matters….it is clear….

each of us chooses to tell the stories that mean the most to us and in our own inimical way and if the intent is one of honesty and one of care (I am certain Christopher and the family in this story though long about this), who are we in our better selves to judge….either the intent of the project, or whether or not the depiction of this life will in the future be rued by the subjects….more importantly is not a respective regret (as implied by some) but why is it that we (the greater society of we) judge and hold against what others and what suffering others and what decisions, poor and wise both, people make and forever hold that against them…..as if the greater collective we are clean of dirt and misshapen deeds….

my hope that these kids stay and remain clean and that the child grows into a world filled by care and loving honor….

“….
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph. ”
-jack gilbert
‘from falling and flying’

the best of luck
bob