Ok, I willl start by writing that this is where I lived growing up. I cannot possibly capture the ugliness of it all and I realize it. This public housing is going to be torn down. It has needed it since the day it was built. I went back and grabbed a few shots and really thought about who I am and what I come from.
It is not good. It is not pretentious nor is it anything special. BUT it is what has made me. It is who I am and I can live with that and grow from that and not try to run from it. I spent many a year trying to escape the stigma of having lived in places such as these, and now, I see that there is no point. Anyone worth knowing will see what I lived through and help as I keep going.
Then the other day I watched this show (possibly a CSI) of course it is dramatized, but it showed how sometimes people can hate people who love them because it reminds them of where they come from. Or they think themselves better than the rest. Perhaps have a overglorified opinion of themselves. Well most assuredly in this show that was the case. At any rate, I saw that in this hugely overexagerated tale there was a point to be made, it just had to made quite loudly for the general public to get it.
So as I tried to capture the ugliness of this place I could not, for to me it was beautiful. In fact the ugliness and barrenness of it was beautiful. There was an honesty in it that changed the way I could shoot it. So I tried to get a stark and lonely shoot, and instead it all came out so...I don't know the word for it. It came out just real. Authentic.
I decided it is not so horrible to have come out of a bad place. I think of course it would have been better to have come from something better, but since that is not the case...I might as well accept it. In fact I realized I accepted it years ago and that has made all the difference. In sitting and visiting with this 80 year old woman who was around, she asked me where I lived before and when I told her, she got this knowing look in her eyes. She spoke more softly and said that I was old school. She remembered my family and for parts of it she said it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. But for other things she said to me it was really good that I remember where I came from. That it makes all ahead brighter.
She was a really neat lady and I will visit with her more. So here is what I shot in the first round of photos. Then some from around town. Then some of me...Accepting ME.
(give or take a makeup smudge)
