That said, I haven’t looked at the sheer number of images that I’m sure you have, and maybe if I did I would become numb to these kinds of images, but I hope I never do. I know I see lots of photography that bores me, that feels like a cliché. But it’s not the subject matter alone that makes an image clichéd, in my opinion. It’s viewpoint, treatment, and a million other things that you’d be much better at articulating than I am.

I hope I haven’t offended you; that wasn’t my intention at all.

I’m not missing your point, I’m (respectfully) disagreeing with it.

I know that imagery of war and starvation and pestilence affects me. Not all of it, of course….but it does go into my brain and I do think about it. I, for one, am not used to certain of those images.

I want to state from the get-go that I don’t need to agree with someone in order to respect them. And (like I mention in my blog post) I do respect what Joerg is doing. I can see his point when it comes to the whole representation of drug addicts thing. I personally hate fads…..I think that anyone who knows me would tell you that I’m just not a faddish guy. In fact, the opposite is probably true. I never set about to do the USER portraits to be faddish. I just sort of fell into it….almost as though they chose me as much as I chose them. It seemed right to me.

Putting all the art world aspects aside, though, I can report that on a macro level, working with the subjects on the ground, there has been positive change because of this work. I won’t go into them here, you’ll have to take my word that many of the people involved in this project (the addicts, their case workers and the people who have seen the images) have told me that the images have changed their minds a little bit, had a positive effect.

Perhaps it’s true, what Joerg says….that in the larger context these are just another batch of shots that will further numb the population. I’ve never held out much hope for any real positive change from anything, really. My contention is that human beings are poorly evolved mammals and the most anyone can do is to try to find their own meaning.

So we get differences of opinion and that seems right too.

I think Fouhse’s images will make viewers see people on the street with more compassion, next time they’re out and about. I really do.

tony