Usually social activists see the injustice first, then pick up the camera to fight it. For Gary Clark’s Essential Humanity Project the photographs came first; activism followed. An award-winning artist and teacher for more than 30 years, Clark was not “particularly political” when he began his project—an extended series of portraits of street people in New York City and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He had been curious about homeless people ever since he first saw them as a child driving through New York’s Bowery with his father. But it wasn’t until he bought his first digital camera five years ago that he decided to find out more about their lives. He wanted to make portraits. As soon as he started, he found out there was a lot more to this than just taking pictures.
Clark’s photographs are composed on the LCD screen of a digital Konica-Minolta A1, but his approach is traditional social documentary. He always asks permission to shoot and offers to show his subjects what he has done. He carries a small notebook, jots date, time, and place, then asks if his subjects want to say something. Carefully, he writes down their words.
Three years ago, Clark was looking for a quick and inexpensive way to share his homeless portraits. He began posting pictures and words on Fotolog under the screen name “mashuga” (Yiddish for “crazy”—he had once asked a homeless man for permission to take his picture, and the man had replied, “Whattayou, mashuga?”). His page quickly became one of the most popular here, receiving thousands of visitors a week and engendering a passionate, often furious, international debate about homelessness, right to privacy, mental health, alcohol and drug abuse, the role of government, and other topics. Word soon got around on the street and many of the homeless people in the photographs became enthusiastic supporters. From cybercafés and borrowed computers, some of them added their own comments to the site.
Melissa, Homeless, St. Marks Place, New York City
The mainstream press also paid attention. Both National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and Brazil’s largest television network, TVGlobo, aired extensive features on Clark’s work (the NPR piece, which includes an audio recording, is here).
These days, when Clark hits the streets, he packs a lot of practical information along with his camera. He is the only non-service-
organization-affiliated member of the Regional Coalition on Homelessness and is also a member of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. He speaks to raise awareness at public school groups, civic clubs, and regional photography groups and has recently given guest lectures in world problems, anthropology, and social work at Bloomsburg University, Wilkes College, and College Misercordia in Scranton, Pa. Last winter his photographs were featured in a drive to collect cold weather clothing and essential survival supplies to distribute at central Pennsylvania shelters and drop-in centers. The drive gathered well over a truckload of material. (This Wednesday and Thursday, Clark will give his second annual presentation, “Essential Humanity 2: Stories of Homelessness,” at Bloomsburg University [scroll to bottom]).
Meanwhile, Clark keeps going back to rephotograph the people he has gotten to know. Over time his portraits reveal what every social worker knows—homelessness, disease, and substance abuse take a terrible toll. Clark’s subjects struggle, fall, rise again. Sometimes they don’t make it. Sometimes they find homes, jobs, sobriety, love. Sometimes they just disappear.
Vinnie and Rabbit, Tompkins Square Park, New York City
The portraits remain. It may be insensitive to critically discuss work that’s so humanly raw and tragic—and ongoing. Diane Arbus once said, “For me the subject of a picture is always more important than the picture. And more complicated.” Clark would probably agree. But it needs to be said that his portraits are masterful—not only in terms of technique, timing, composition, sense of light and color, but also in more mysterious ways that Arbus would certainly understand. Like the best photographic portraits, they are achingly specific, yet they also transcend their subjects. Clark’s portraits don’t sentimentalize or ignore the failings of the people he meets on the streets—they neither look up or down. What they consistently do—what they challenge the viewer to do—is to connect with those it’s so easy to ignore. —Tim Connor
Nov. 12-18 is National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. Consider becoming involved with local programs to help during the holidays and the rest of the winter months. —Eds.
tags: homeless, mashuga, portraits
2 Responses to “Of the Essence”
The Daily F’log » Blog Archive » Prose and Connor @ 2007-03-08 10:59:14 PM says:
[…] New blogs are as plentiful these days as grains of sand on the beach, but a new blog about photography that’s smart, provocative, and well-informed–well, there are lots of those too! But make room for another one, by a longtime Fotologger: Tim Connor, aka colorstalker, has just launched his own eponymous blog, with posts about Jeff Wall and his new MoMA retrospective (sparking very interesting discussions about the “hunted image vs. the contrived image” and what drives the art market) and his favorite photographer, Robert Frank. As you can see from his Fotolog archive, Tim’s a fantastic photographer, at once analytical and instinctual, and he invests those tendencies in his writing too, which he’s been producing in one form or another—criticism, reportage, fiction—for more than thirty years. He wrote the appreciation of mashuga’s work that appeared here on the F’log in November. […]
The Daily F’log » Blog Archive » Veterans’ Days, and Nights @ 2008-04-12 03:33:06 PM says:
[…] From Gary Clark, aka mashuga, the longtime Fotolog member who we profiled way back at the beginning of The Daily F’log, important news of a greater attention to the plight of homeless persons in the U. S., specifically veterans: CNN has produced a program of interviews and visits with Gary and three homeless veterans in Pennsylvania. The show airs in the U.S. tonight, April 12, at 10:00 pm EDT, and again Sunday April 13 at 10 EDT. Here is an excerpt from mashuga’s description of the special on his log today: CNN traveled to N.E. Pa., to do a story with myself and three homeless, or formerly homeless veterans in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. They came here yesterday. A reporter for the network interviewed each of us for quite a while about homeless veterans issues, and as for myself we discussed the wider issue of homelessness in this country and also focused on homeless veterans. CNN reporter Dan Lothian interviewed Mike, Bob, Pinky and myself. “Mike,” shown in this photo [above left], is a former police officer of 28 years and also “homeless vet,” who was placed on indefinite suspension because he missed training while he was away. He has still not been given the missed training and has become in effect homeless. Bob [above right] is an Iraqi War Vet, formerly living under a bridge. He has been in approximately 1,000 combat missions in Iraq been wounded, and has been diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.) Bob could not concentrate to hold a job and was put out on the street by the VA. (CNN visited with Bob and interviewed him around and under the bridge where he lived as recently as last December.) “Pinky,” is a Vietnam Vet and formerly homeless, he now lives in doors and holds a job. Later Dan Lothian and his video man, drove around with me to get a few views of homeless campsites and a better over view of the Wilkes-Barre area while interviewing me. I’ll admit driving around with a CNN reporter, and having a video camera in my face is quite a bit unnerving. I don’t know how articulate I was in this circumstance, but I hope that I stated the central issues of Homelessness clearly. I also hope what I had to say about the veteran’s issues would be understood by the public that hears my views. I am not an “expert,” but I have been working as a street photographer and chronicler of the homeless for quite a few years. During that time I have seen first hand how pervasive these problems are and I feel compelled to speak out and call for solutions. This as most of you know is an election year and it is the time therefore to demand changes in how we treat our veterans, the poor and addicted, and people with mental and emotional problems. A country is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable and we face grave consequences as those numbers grow. There are approximately 196,000 veterans on the street in the United States on any given night. That is, one out of every four homeless men, women or children in the United States is a veteran. […]