"Let us assume that it is summer," begins Robert Penn Warren's short story, "The Circus in the Attic." And with these few words, Warren captures your imagination. The brilliance of Warren's work is well documented and the short story form, along with his poetry and novels distinguish Robert Penn Warren as one of the giants in American literature in the 20th century.
He wrote of his youth in the South, of innocence lost and the trials of living and dying, loving and giving. His complex and powerful narratives describe our human nature with all our virtues and faults. "Everyone has their story," he wrote, "and everyone's story is worth telling."
When I'm choosing the final selection of photographs for a book, magazine, or this website one clue that I may be looking at a special photograph is that I want to linger with it, much as the reader wants to linger in a Robert Penn Warren short story or novel. And is often the case I am struck by the question, what story is the photograph sharing with me, what clues are there to the mystery that has been written in the form of an image?
I've long been interested in the relationship between text and images, especially poetry and how the two can illuminate the personal narrative of the subject of a photograph. For me, it is one of my chief obsessions. Ultimately it's about striking the right balance, so that one doesn't overpower the other. It's about how the two art forms can compliment the other.
Adding layers, often complex elements to photographs, creating images that end up asking questions. An attempt to bring multiple dimensions into a single frame. To offer multiple meanings and possibilities to the short stories of my images. To create images about something, not just of something. To document the mystery that is life.
In this edition of The Jarrett Street Collection I was inspired by a quote from Robert Penn Warren: "We're separated from our inner being as if by a glass wall...We are akin to it and yet we are alienated by our consciousness - our curse and our blessing."
This kind of emotional tension Warren is referring to echoes the inner conflict I sometimes feel while photographing people who are, or who appear to be suffering. Part of me wants to turn and run the other way - yet because these people are so utterly compelling to look at, to understand the essence of their short story - another part of me wants to get closer. This often unsettling feeling compels me to take their photograph. The outcome of which is to share their story and in doing so offer them a degree of dignity.
And often an image presents itself that is joyful, a celebration of life, an interesting situation or event. Like life, there is the gamut of emotion. Deep heartfelt suffering and an equal measure of joy. Some photographs for me at least conjure up memories of growing up, learning, exploring and testing the limits. And so I linger, wanting to spend time in the image, with its story waiting for the emotion to unfold.
Let us assume that it is summer. Can you feel the heat of a summer day, smell the freshly cut grass? Look over there! A dog chasing his ball, that old Tomcat chasing butterflies? Do you feel the smooth river rocks, the flat one's good for skipping across the surface of the water? And do you feel the loss and remember the flowers, their smell heavy in the hot humid air at the funeral and later everyone brings food and there's the murmur of voices and forced laughter?
Do you see her coming closer, its as if she's floating on the summer breeze, the slight tilt of her head and the catch light in her eyes and you feel your gut tighten in anticipation of her smile, her touch? Close your eyes and you are there.
Short stories. Everyone has their story. And everyone's story is worth telling through the images of their lives. In joy and in sadness, celebrations and loss, ours is just a short story waiting to be told.