Quitting Wall Street To Tell A Prostitute's Story

[Andrea Taurisano]

I agree with you andrea In the LFI issue of September 2013 there was a portofolio of Angelos Tzortzinis work about the effects of the economic crisis in Greece meaning extreme rise of illegal prostitution and drug use often combined. I have to admit I felt extremely ashamed as we northern and central europeans constantly badmouthed the greek population and in reality they got screwed first by the banksters, second by the EU and third by their own government. Here's a link to an online video showcasing his work. http://vimeo.com/74857948

Yeah, I know Tzortzinis' work. That is truly astonishingly well executed and presented, IMO. Powerful enough to make me stop to admire and think, at least.

 

[Andrea Taurisano]

surname?...or are you from Taurisano?

Actually surname. But my father is from a place an hour drive from Taurisano.. ;-)

 

[tunalegs]

Perhaps it may have been more interesting had he photographed his wallstreet (ex) cohorts doing drugs and hiring escorts.

 

[fireblade]

Actually surname. But my father is from a place an hour drive from Taurisano.. ;-)

i know the area well.

 

[35mmdelux]

It's not about the people in power it's about the public which supposedly has the power in a democracy. The more people see it and want to do something against those condition the more will happen. The people in power (mayor etc...) only care about four things: themselves, votes, money and power nothing else.
If they have to fear that they will lose one of those four things if they don't fight these bad conditions they will act.

The elected folk will act when the community breathes fire. Generally the elected folk do little more than token because the community doesn't care. Until such time it is mostly about sound bites, smiling, the cocktail circuit--and a huge dose of self-importance.

 

[kbg32]

Ya gotta learn to walk before ya run...

 

[Roger Hicks]

Might have been even more interesting if he'd photographed the Wall Street financial whores he'd worked with before.

Cheers,

R.

 

[MCTuomey]

Something is wrong with my radar, I guess. I don't give a rat's a$$ what Arnade did before he began photographing in the Bronx. What does it matter?

 

[MCTuomey]

Might have been even more interesting if he'd photographed the Wall Street financial whores he'd worked with before.

Cheers,

R.

You must not read the society pages, Roger. Already well covered by other 'togs.

 

[35mmdelux]

Might have been even more interesting if he'd photographed the Wall Street financial whores he'd worked with before.

Cheers,

R.

RIGHT ON!! nough said..

 

[tunalegs]

Something is wrong with my radar, I guess. I don't give a rat's a$$ what Arnade did before he began photographing in the Bronx. What does it matter?

I think it has something to do with the idea of a well connected man with a profession, education, and money - taking pictures of the destitute and then selling them on for his own profit. Not that this appears to be the case here specifically, but it happens.

 

[Sparrow]

Might have been even more interesting if he'd photographed the Wall Street financial whores he'd worked with before.

Cheers,

R.

... I considered about posting that thought earlier, but decided it wasn't worth the effort

regards

 

[MCTuomey]

I think it has something to do with the idea of a well connected man with a profession, education, and money - taking pictures of the destitute and then selling them on for his own profit. Not that this appears to be the case here specifically, but it happens.

Appreciate your response, thx. I'm sorry I still just don't get it. Changing vocations is, well, Arnade's personal choice and none of my concern. And anyway, isn't the taking of pictures of people in distress an accepted element of documentary photography? And aren't documentary photographers compensated (via grant income, sales of prints or books, etc)? Where is there an issue? 70 years ago, Dorothea Lange was paid through the WPA, among other sources, to shoot migrant labor, right? And more broadly in terms of media, early 20th century American documentarian Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, both documentary and a commercial success, that had profound legal and social consequences. Likewise Rachel Carson's mid-20th century Silent Spring, a commercially successful book. Some of these people won Nobel or Pulitzer prizes. Could go on re documentary photographers' books and prints and paid contributions to magazines and so forth, but you know them. Long history of this kind of work, paid or otherwise.

 

[russelljtdyer]

I can Relate

I can Relate

I did something similar to what this man has done: I worked for 12 years in the investment business. I was a broker at Merrill Lynch in New Orleans, a securities examiner for the NASD, and a Chief Financial Officer of a small brokerage firm in Memphis with a few branch offices. Then one day I decided that I was tired of that type of work. I switched from working with people who had plenty of money, to people who had no money. I took a job with the St. Vincent de Paul Society, for a third of the pay of my previous job, working with the homeless and poor. It was a re-balancing of my life, a personal Peace Corps program that I did for two years. It was a good experience for me. There was no notoriety for me, not that that wouldn't have been nice, but it wasn't what I was seeking.

If this photographer feels he can do more for the homeless and others he photographs by speaking in addition to photographing, it's difficult for me to question his intention. Although I gained little financial rewards for that work, I feel like I'm a happier person for the time I spent working with the poor and it has indirectly made me more successful in my life.

I wonder, though, if Henri Cartier-Bresson was interviewed and asked to speak nationally and globally about the poor and others who suffered that he photographed. Was he a spokesman for the crises in the world that he photographed, and speaking publicly was as an extension of his photography? Or did he let his photos speak for themselves--or at least let writers add the text to the photos he took for magazines and newspapers? I can't imagine him on a morning television show, like 'The View' in the U.S., talking about the people he photographed. Maybe he did or maybe he would in today's culture, but it seems like he was a photographer first and foremost, and not a spokesman for causes. Of course, here I am, a writer who is a would-be photographer. But for me, photography is a hobby and not a catalyst to something else. Still it doesn't matter if someone wants to do both or do it all. Good for them if they can and do.

 

[aizan]

google turned up another recent story on rosie holtom, whose approach is different:

http://www.theguardian.com/artandde.../01/rosie-holtom-portraits-of-homeless-people
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68473745@N08/

makes for an interesting compare and contrast. what are your thoughts on how they approach their subjects as either "just another person like me" vs. "these people live in a very different world than me"?

 

[JHutchins]

I think it has something to do with the idea of a well connected man with a profession, education, and money - taking pictures of the destitute and then selling them on for his own profit. Not that this appears to be the case here specifically, but it happens.

This comment and the Bronx Art Exchange post bother me because they simply dismiss a body of work -- without actually considering the work itself -- because the creator of that work is wealthier than the subjects. The photographs are communicative. In my mind the relevant questions here are what do the photographs actually say, is it worth saying, and are there good reasons to refrain from saying it. And those are questions that are answered by the work and not the photographer's biography. Both this comment, and the Bronx Art Exchange post, look at the work, if at all, as something with monetary value (or perhaps as generating some other sort of value with something like "fame") and address only whether there is something unfair about the way that value is distributed as between photographer and subject. They look only at the value in exchange of the work and ignore the work itself -- what it means. And I think as a result they do nothing but add a little dollop of moral self-righteousness to a pile that is already quite big enough.

I've looked at the work and I think it does have value. Any contribution it makes to improving the lot of the people photographed is surely speculative and perhaps doubtful. But what it does do is show the viewer something he might not otherwise see -- communicate something about these lives that the viewer might not otherwise understand. And as a result it may, at least, have some effect on the people who see it -- build up their empathy a little bit, slow down their impulses to judgment a little bit and -- at least for a time -- maybe make them something a bit closer to decent human beings. Its ability to do that has nothing whatsoever to do with the financial background of the person taking the pictures it has to do with his effectiveness as a photographer and communicator and his own capacity for seeing what is there. And if it can do that then, in my opinion, anyone who says the photographer's voice should be silenced just because of his financial background is basically just an asshole. Because there will never be a surplus of decency in the world.

 

[MCTuomey]

makes for an interesting compare and contrast. what are your thoughts on how they approach their subjects as either "just another person like me" vs. "these people live in a very different world than me"?

I don't see the approach as dichotomous. It's about bringing the unfamiliar into my range of experience via use of media. Homeless people and crack addicts aren't familiar to me, which leads to social generalization, then finally social apathy on my part.

Obviously a homeless person isn't necessarily an addict, or vice versa, so there should be some disparity. What seems important to me is that the photographer is open to the specificity of the person behind the abstraction of the label, is able to capture that specificity, and then show me. Both the veteran sex worker and the smiling, nicely dressed homeless folks are, for the moment, made interesting and human to me.

 

[tunalegs]

This comment and the Bronx Art Exchange post bother me because they simply dismiss a body of work...

I'll stop you right there since I actually wrote a second sentence expressly for the sake of not dismissing the work out of hand. 😉
My first sentence was simply to post the idea that some people seem to have about the work and why it bothers them.

Where is there an issue?

Frankly it's not too hard to see the issue. If some rich guy, who has no problem making money using his resources and privileges - instead decides he'd enjoy making some money by turning homeless drug addicts (or some other group interesting to anybody who isn't poor) into a spectacle - well frankly - that's enormously perverse.

That is why what the photographer does with the images he makes, and how he interacts with his subjects is important to some people. Is he just being self serving and treating them as a freakshow? Or does he have a genuine interest in their well being? There have been and continue to be exploitative photographers, so this is not just some "I want to be mad" imaginary problem.

 

[aizan]

i think we can take his word for it that he's well-meaning and genuinely concerned for his subjects' welfare, and that he's trying to show the individuality of his subjects.

on the other hand, that doesn't mean that the photog is not making a spectacle of his subjects, as tunalegs says, and showing them as objects, exotic outcasts, abject "others," typological specimens, and all of the other controversial issues that are part and parcel of photographing the homeless. it is very difficult to break out of one's worldview, which is what i'm looking for whenever i see another photographer of the homeless.

 

[Brian Legge]

Instead of reacting to the links and journalistic description of the work (which will be about selling the story), check out the stories and images. It may give people a different perspective.

http://arnade.tumblr.com/