|
Stories & Photos |
|
death rides
tonight
(young drifter ash – shortened name of a
death god, sf, may 2006)
young homeless drifter ash. he says he
was named for an ancient death god or
such and goes by ash for short. he grew
up as a ward of the state. says his
parents were "fuckers." he got the star
tattoo on his face when he was 13.
says he's a "traveler." has been hopping
freight trains for years. he's off to
louisiana tonight.
but now a moment alone with a cigarette
and a bottle. then to party with his
friends. then there's a freight train
he'll hop in oakland with his crew.
(5/23/06)
motherless
(homeless man with face markings, sf,
may 2006)
homeless eric in soma. eric used to
freight hop and had a circuit he would
follow seasonally. about eight years
ago, on his sf stop, he got hooked bad
on heroin and thus got stuck.
he figures it's too much trouble trying
to move on; he'd just get sick, and he
wouldn't be able to put aside enough to
hold him until the next fix. everything
now is shooting up and hustling his next
fix. so he stays.
he was in prison in new mexico some time
before and has prison tattoos up and
down his arms. he managed to get away
with them except for an inch by inch
section on his left arm; his last. that
got him nine extra months.
he grew up in the foster system. his
parents killed themselves when he was
five (carbon monoxide asphyxiation). his
mom was a hooker and his dad was a
junky.
he agrees that was fucked up for a five
year old but says everything's been
fucked up like that.
(5/8/06)
cowboy
(old rodeo man looking for housing, sf,
november 2006)
archie from texas standing on the
sidewalk near the tenderloin. he's just
made it here from texas. asked for a
photo, says "i don't mind."
archie is an old cowboy. says he used to
ride rodeo in sf. says he still has a
son in san francisco and points across
the way.
archie's face tells stories. he bends
slightly and walks slowly. he has aged.
as i approach he is about to cross the
street. a heavyset transgender woman
stands in front, says something over her
shoulder and crosses the street.
a few minutes later she returns. she is
his son. she takes his hand, pointing to
a place where he can apply for housing.
he follows.
(11/22/06)
lord take
me away
(tired homeless man, sf, april 2006)
homeless walter from texas in the
mission. he was living somewhere along
the path of katrina when it struck.
displaced by the hurricane, i believe;
he says he returned to sf soon after
because he'd always liked it.
walter says he has two daughters with
three doctorates between them; one who
teaches at columbia and the other at
texas southern.
walter says he was one of the 12
original black panther founding members.
when the subject was raised of someone
who worked with eldridge cleaver at
ramparts magazine back in the day, he
says he never liked cleaver: "he wasn't
good to his woman."
walter says men are crooks. all of them.
"you and me, we're men; but we know."
(smile; wink)
he continues that we need to return to
where we came from; women need to run
the show. "just think", he says, "who
raised you?" "who took care of you? who
managed the household? your mother,
that's who. and your grandmother. i
never disrespected a woman in my life;
and i never will."
"we need a woman president" he says; "to
fix things. no more men. we only fuck it
up."
"we need hillary " he says. "you think
i'm foolin'; i'm serious!"
"me" he says finally, "i'm just waiting
for god to take me away. i don't like
what i see in this place."
(4/23/06)
|
|
By popular
demand, I've added an East Bay show!!! I have
27 photographs at
The Light Room Gallery
in
Berkeley. It's a great open space for
exhibiting and really came together wonderfully!
The opening party is Saturday, February 3 at
5pm. The show will be up through
February
28.
The
Light Room
Gallery | 2263 Fifth
Street | Berkeley
www.lightroom.com
I did an
interview
recently with dPi Magazine
in Australia. The
interview and article are in the Dec /
Jan 2007 edition of the magazine.
 Click a page to view
it larger. Once clicked, pages with a magnifying
glass allow you to zoom in further on the
text.
|
.ORG Donations with Purchase |
Currently 20-30%
of online sales go to funding ".ORG"
community activities. In addition, the
complete gross (net
of production costs) on the sale of specific prints, sizes or
formats will continue to be donated.
  For
January, February and March 2007, the complete gross of
all online sales of matted SML and MED prints will be donated.
Purchase
here.
Buy art with a social conscience! Make a
lasting change to your home environment.
Or make that lasting change at work. Buy
art that inspires. Collect.
Invest.
Tom
Stone was born on a train
outside of Mexico City traveling
to Puerto Angel, Oaxaca. His
parents separated soon after his
birth and he grew up with his
mother in various communal and
nomadic settings in Hawaii and
California.
A graduate of Harvard University
with a degree in computer
science, he worked in Silicon
Valley for a number of years in
investment banking and in the
technology industry.
He is a documentary photographer
known for his portraits of
people living along the edges of
society. His photography shares
perspective with the work of
Dorothea Lange, Richard Avedon,
Diane Arbus and Sebastião
Salgado.
I photograph people who
skirt the edges of things; people whose
connection to the broader flow is murky
or obscured. Mistaken as more, less or
different than they are; they aren’t
really seen and don’t really belong.
That’s everyone sometimes; but some more
often. I try to establish a line for a
moment. I hope to connect. And I see the
most beautiful and the most
heartbreaking things.
To my thinking, the original human
trauma is our separation. We are too
close not to need each other; and too
far to trust each other. We rely on
dubious senses and clever devices to
interact; but we are alone in our
thoughts. Lonely, insecure and
uncertain; we pair, we group, we
associate. We try to belong and we seek
to exclude. We form bonds by geography,
religion, economy and otherwise. But it
is all precarious. We come together and
we drive apart.
And we climb our ladder. We step away
from those who don’t belong and help
those who do. We are connected rung by
rung – though less and less – as we push
and pull. But some do not climb; and
below, the earth is littered with them.
They fit too poorly. They stand apart.
They stand without.
And what of them; these ones who don’t
belong or who are excluded; who don’t
fit or don’t try? Is there nothing they
value? Is there nothing of them we
value? I count it as a measure of our
ignorance, the depth of poverty in the
world. It’s a glaring marker to how far
we have not come. Yet it has also driven
our advance; on less fortunate backs and
against less fortunate fate.
But is there really no connection there?
Does such fate – whether choice or
circumstance – speak nothing of us? Tell
me we do more than advance in place;
with so many left behind. Or promise me
we can do better. Say we can reflect
ourselves; us and them... That we can
see the ways we overlap and distinguish
the ways we grow apart. And pledge that
we can learn; to fit all of our
misshapes; to reward value beyond
charity and beyond the marketplace; to
be better to each other; to be better
ourselves. And promise me it could be a
better world. Or tell me we are at our
best. |
