TIME LINES
REFLECTED EXPERIENCES
The images from my body of work “Reflected Experiences” that are included in the Huntington Beach Art Center exhibit “Time Lines” convey in some way an autumnal feel, explore the beauty of the “sacred ordinary” with its warts and roses, and the significance of the moment when I was taken by the image. I was moved to begin the series in 2008 by my wife’s terminal illness that led to a reflection on suffering as part of the human condition. Over the years, my images reflected ordinary life on the streets. As time went on, I overcame my fear of personal contact and moved from environmental settings to close-in portraits. I also began to listen to the stories of the people I met: tales of failure, sadness, joy, loss, all tales of the human condition. I have been deeply moved by these stories and invite the viewer to reflect on the human condition as seen in the images.
I was drinking a cup of coffee at an outdoor cafe near the corner of 7th Street and Spring in Los Angeles when the man came up to me and asked for money to buy some food. I asked him to sit down and bought a sandwich for him. He said he had just come in on the bus from Laredo, Texas. Such fear in his eyes.
I made this image of Pablo at Bowers Art Museum during a Dia de Los Muertos celebration. An Aztec dance group was reenacting a death and rebirth legend from an ancient myth. Pablo was engrossed in the dance until he momentarily distracted by my lens. He seemed far off, perhaps thinking of rebirth.
I passed by this homeless man leaning against a wall in downtown Los Angeles. His dress indicated that he was poor and his body language suggested a sense of despair and frustration. So many homeless in our society today.
This beautiful, wisdom filled woman’s expression reveals the look of a life well lived, a life that has experienced sadness and joy and in the end moved beyond those life moments to a kind of timelessness.
A friend and I had gone to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills to make photos. After a couple of hours, my feet hurt and I sat down in front of one of the exclusive shops. A few minutes later, this homeless man sat down a couple of feet from me. He pulled out a black, plastic sack from which he took pieces of chicken and lettuce that I imagine he found in a trash can. He stuffed the food into his mouth. I asked him if I could make a portrait. He grunted “Yes.” I made his portrait. He stood up and walked down Rodeo. A moment that will stay with me.
I met this lady in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles during a celebration of an El Salvadorian feast day. She was working in her son’s carnival balloon booth. When I asked her if I could make her portrait, she agreed and remarked that her wrinkles were her beauty. She remains of the most joyful persons I have ever met.
I saw this lady standing on the corner of 7th and Broadway in Los Angeles. Her face was filled with anxiety. She kept looking one way and then another as if she was deciding which way to go.
I saw this man at the Long Beach Car Swap Meet which is held once a month at the Veterans Stadium. He was promoting several junk cars behind him. I realized that his face reminded me of portraits of merchants from the early Renaissance.
I met the Poet in a Starbucks near 6th and Grand in downtown Los Angeles. He said that he was from a wealthy family in the city. His father wanted him to become a lawyer but he chose another path and became an outcast. When I commented that I was making a photographic body of work about the homeless, he replied that I was wasting my time because they chose to be homeless.
This elderly lady was standing in the entrance to the Asian Gardens mall in Westminster, CA. Seeing her alone was quite shocking because older people in the Vietnamese culture are revered. She stood there, looking down, the bald spot in her hair highlighted by the LED spotlights.
When I met Donny, he was sitting on the concrete steps next to the Huntington Beach, CA, Pier. He asked for some change to buy food, and I reached into my pocket and pulled out three quarters, all I had. I sat down next to him after making his portrait. We talked. He told a somewhat disjointed story of how he became homeless: military service, a failed attempt to go to college, choosing the streets. One comment was expecially interesting. He said that many of the homeless he knew had been physically abused or sexually molested as a child. What I most remember about him was his gentle face and temperament.
I made an image of Donny’s hands. Red, chaffed, dry from exposure to the weather, and I would think painful, they serve as a reminder of the health issues of the homeless.
Sunday afternoon. I was at the cement bleachers next to the Huntington Beach Pier. The drummers were there, as usual. On lookers and players were caught up the rhythms, the beat. One of those moments that recalled Yeats’ line from “Among School Children:” “O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,/How can we know the dancer from the dance?” Except the music was more primitive, more compelling. Still, all of us, including this homeless man, became the music, the dance.
I’d gone with a photo group that I belong to to make images in Venice Beach, CA. I parked in a pay-lot and noticed this homeless man sleeping on his suitcase. I made a shot and walked toward the boardwalk, hoping to find images of muscle beach, bikini clad young women, and the scene. Later in the day, I walked back to my car. The man was still sleeping. His was the only interesting image I found that day.
I’d gone early in the morning to the Dia de Los Muertos fiesta in Santa Ana, CA. I hope to avoid the crowds that interfere with making images and perhaps to find unusual perspectives. I saw this woman who was having her face painted for the celebration. She said that she had just come from a food shelter where she volunteered to feed the homeless breakfast.
This homeless man maintains himself. Neatly trimmed beard, clean clothed, always wearing his black hat, I’ve seen him often near the corner of 7th and Broadway in L. A. A few months ago, I discovered that he lived in an alley near a pay parking lot on Hill Street. His home is built from cardboard boxes, pieces of plastic sheeting serving as a roof, and a large flowered bed spread that covers the entrance. Once when I walked down the alley, he had left the door space uncovered. When I looked in, I saw a row of old, beaten up shoes lined up perfectly in a straight row, old clothes perfectly folded in a box, and a tooth brush, soap, and mouth wash resting on a ledge in the brick wall that served as a side of the house. His bed was made from an green air mattress.
I met Vincent on skid row in Los Angeles. When I took Eric Kim’s Street Photography workshops, I was warned about making images in the area identified as skid row. But for some strange reason, I found myself there along with a student who was doing a research paper on the homeless. I had told him I would make images that he could use in the paper. So there we were, standing on the corner across from the Midnight Mission. I asked what we should do now. Vincent was standing behind me and answered my question: “Talk to me.” We did talk. During the next twenty or so minutes, Vincent told me about he ended up on skid row. He had worked in large corporation, had a loving family, and a ncie home. The stress of his career caused him to beingusing cocaine, selling it, followed by jail. When he was realized, he was dumped on skid row, abandoned by his family, and left with nothing. Slowly, he recovered, joined a Christian support group, and found housing in the area. He told me to never come there at night because I would witness horrors: prostitution, drug sales, murder, and even my own murder. “This is hell,” he said. Then he quoted the opening lines of Dante’s Divine Comedy:
“In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear. It is scarcely less bitter than death: but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there.”
I asked if I could make his portrait. As I looked at it later, I recognized a hopeful expression on his face. Perhaps his plunge into the pit and efforts to struggle on, give him a intimation of paradise.
I met this homeless near the corner of 6th and Broadway in Los Angeles. He agreed to have his portrait made. Such a far-off expression, as if he were not on the street but rather in some distant place, perhaps a moment in childhood.
I’d gone to Venice Beach with a photography group and saw this woman walking back and forth along the boardwalk in front of the tourist shops. She moved without stopping as if in a trance. Her movements reminded me of Alzheimer’s patients I’d seen in a dementia care unit. Without warning, she suddenly stopped in front of a fast-food stand. I made this single image and later wrote a poem about the experience.
The Woman with the Black Shawl
Nameless,
She paces the sidewalk in front of Muscle Beach,
Paces down, meanders back,
Flops her arms in disjointed angles,
Adjusts her shawl, tugs on her faded flowered dress.
Invisible,
To the gentrified tourists aiming twelve gauge, zoom lenses,
Preying on the creatures of Venice Beach:
Tight fleshed weight lifters with full purses,
Graffiti costumed freaks,
Teen-age girls boxed in string bikinis.
I’d seen her pace before
In the halls of the dementia ward
Where my wife sunk into a bed,
A stone that not even a Moses could summon water
From,
Had a measure of care.
Pausing,
The homeless woman with the black shawl turned
toward the incoming fog
That sheltered her like a prayer.
I was with fellow photographers when I saw Sugar standing on a loading platform in the industrial area between the Ten freeway and the L. A. Arts District. I asked if I could make a portrait. She agreed and as I focused my camera, she placed her hands on the side of her face and pulled up her wrinkled skin. She began singing “Sweet Jesus is my savior.” Such a moment.
He was standing on Hollywood Blvd. He quietly held a sign that stated a simple declaration: Jesus Saves. I admired his courage in the face of the sinners.
I met Martha in Washington Square in New York city. Her son brought her and her puppet to the square on Sunday. She spent the day making children happy. A day well spent.
This thin, homeless man sat on the concrete bleachers on the boardwalk of Venice Beach, CA. Behind him, the weight lifters strained to reach the perfection of the ideal body. Ah, vanity of vanities.
Rich or poor, we are all hunter-gathers. This homeless woman searched in trash cans strung along Hollywood Blvd like black ravens. I noted the quiet facial expression that accompanied her task of survival.
Having my images in the “Timelines” show that explored perspectives on aging, was an enriching experience, one that was shared by apprecative viewers. At the deepest level, I am reminded that aging is a process shared by all living things, an experience that calls us to reflect on the truth that “to everything there is a season.”
