A camera never lies about the photographer.
The ideas and the feelings of the photographer is what is superimposed upon what they see in front of them.
Fundamentally, I'm sympathetic to people who find reasons to protest against the status quo.
I know the personal price that one pays when standing up against white privilege from growing up in a very isolated town of 800 people in South East Alabama
As a child, my early experiences are of my grandparents living with us after their house was burned down.
My Grandfather took it upon himself to enhance the numbers of blacks registered to vote. And his reward for this was, one Sunday, his house was burned down.
The other level is, I had a cousin who resisted the local police who were just harassing people. He shot at the police.
And as the Chief was running up a posse to hang him, my great uncle helped him escape through the forest, where he was then met by an undertaker, who put him in a casket and drove him across the border to Georgia.
This appreciation of civil disobedience from the inside. I was able to feel the kindred spirit when I saw it in other people. My work on ACT-UP was a kinship. Theirs was a very legitimate demand.
At the time, AIDS was just decimating the ranks of so many young people who could have made more contributions to New York society, and to American Society, had they lived.
The American government was very slow about processing new drugs that could make a difference.
The community organised to fight back against this bureaucratic delay, so they decided to use public protests as a way of highlighting their frustration.
To bring attention to the crisis that was going on in their community.
“Let’s celebrate together tonight the end of the last day on which Ed Koch can tell himself that the communities which are being decimated by this epidemic are so weak, and so divided among themselves,
that he can keep serving us this kind of bullshit.
Tomorrow morning he will begin to learn the truth.”
“Stand tall tomorrow morning at City Hall!"
"Act up, stand tall, tomorrow morning at City Hall!
There was a huge demonstration at City Hall and Brooklyn Bridge.
It was not only about City Hall but it was about blocking the traffic going onto Brooklyn Bridge.
The organisers felt the more discomfort you could create, and the more disturbance that you could create, the more uncomfortable people in power would become.
People were getting arrested. These people put their bodies on the line.
This one particular image that we ran in the paper, is a young man who’s on the ground, we see the legs of the police, who are the oppressive force there to capture him.
Even though he's being detained, in his last imagery of freedom, he holds up his banner.
His intensity on his face and in his feelings, how much is at stake emotionally, speaks to the desperation, the meaning of what they were trying to do.
As well as the oppressive vice they had to go through in order to make these statements heard.
I think the role of photojournalists is to try to give a sense to the viewer of the reality that was in front of the camera.
“It's all about your strength of self and your sense of acceptance, and your sense of belonging that I think that really makes a difference.”
“The more I know about myself, the deeper I go into myself, the better I understand people in front of the camera.”
“We make a lot of constructions in our lives that are unnecessary, but we go through it. And I'm interested in seeing how people go through it.
I don't judge people. I'm open to them expressing themselves. I give them the visual room to say who they are. I accept them as people. I accept their legitimacy. I accept their agency.
My inspiration to create a great image causes me to appear at that particular moment professionally. But I know it's not something that I own, it is something that I'm here to see, and it's their life.
And my job is to try to give light to the reality there of their life as fair as possible.”
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