From the Archive - I Like To Be Smooth, Minneapolis, MN
Lake Street USA (1997 - 2000)
I love to get my stomach and chest waxed. It makes me laugh. I like the feeling of smoothness against my clothes and raw skin. I just don’t like hair. I like to be smooth.
The pain almost feels good in a way. It’s like a sexual experience. You want it to happen and you don’t want it to happen. It’s kind of weird. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. One moment it can hurt, and the next moment it can make you laugh.
It’s also kind appetizing to the mind to see all the hair removed. Like when you play Pac Man. You want to get rid of all the little dots. And you can’t stop. Then it kills you.
From the Archive - Joe’s Barber Shop, St. Paul, MN
Frogtown (1993 - 1995)
I first started coming here in the 30s when I was 16. It was called Nick’s Barber Shop then. Haircuts were 35 cents. Now they’re $7.50. Still a good buy. Joe here has been cutting my hair since 1950. I’ve been a good customer. I get it cut every three weeks. If you can stand his bs you’ve got it made. That’s a lot of bs over 40 years. I guess that’s why I come here.
Changing Lenses is the product of an ongoing conversation between eminent sociologist Doug Hartmann, Ph.D. and myself. In each post, we exchange what’s seen behind a camera lens and what’s seen through a sociological lens to get at the diversity of perspectives and cultivate a unique look at the human experience. Below is my perspective. Read Doug’s reaction here.
From the Archive - Politician, St. Paul, MN
Frogtown (1993 - 1995)
I haven’t photographed that much in the political sphere. I’m not sure why. Partly perhaps because the circus surrounding politics are often orchestrated media events and I’m interested more in what is usually not covered by the press. Also I’ve been apolitical most of my life, just as I’ve been areligious, although I’ve photographed in a lot of churches and faith-based places, so I guess I can’t use that as an excuse.
I’m more interested in the sociology of politics than politics itself. For instance, do aesthetics determine political beliefs or is it the other way around? Why do liberals and conservatives dress the way they do? Can knowing whether or not you like to color outside the lines as a kid be a predictor of your opinion on abortion?
I assume that sociologists are plagued with the same biases that challenge every field of study that supposes objectivity, unlike artists who are expected to flaunt their point of view. I guess in that sense I’m more like a sociologist than an artist, in that I want my point of view to seem transparent.
This photograph doesn’t have much of a back-story. The image is really my only memory of it. I went back to the contact sheet and realized it was on one of the first rolls I shot for Frogtown, which was my first project. It put me on the artistic map, so to speak.
I believe I was just walking around and bumped into this scene. I only took two shots of the politician, both from the back. Amazing how few of the children, who became unwitting political advertisements, are actually looking at the politician.
Changing Lenses is the product of an ongoing conversation between eminent sociologist Doug Hartmann, Ph.D. and myself. In each post, we exchange what’s seen behind a camera lens and what’s seen through a sociological lens to get at the diversity of perspectives and cultivate a unique look at the human experience. Below is my perspective. Read Doug’s reaction here.
From the Archive - Roosevelt High School Students, Minneapolis, MN
Lake Street USA (1997 - 2000)
When I took this photograph in 1998, nearly half of the student population at Roosevelt High School, located in the urban core of South Minneapolis, was Somali. Perhaps school district officials thought it best to keep all of the refugees together; that’s what they’d done with Southeast Asians in the mid-‘70s, too.
All of the students pictured here are Muslim and, as required by their faith, pray five times a day. This could be problematic during school hours, and they’d pray as discreetly as they could under stairwells or in bathrooms. Whether it was the separation of church and state that legally prohibits prayer in schools or the distinctly not Christian spectacle of prostrated Islamic worship, the Somali students banded together to find an alternative place to pray. Racial tensions flared between these students and both white and other black students at Roosevelt.
Ironically, Our Redeemer Lutheran Church (across the street from the school) became the safe haven for these kids. Every Friday during their lunch hour, Somali students transformed the basement of Our Redeemer into a mosque. First the boys prayed, then the girls.
Fourteen years later, I wondered if a Muslim prayer group still meets. I was surprised to see that the church marquee now reads: Our Redeemer Oromo Evangelical Church. The cultural cross-pollination continues: the Oromo, ethnic refugees from Ethiopia, now occupy the sanctuary and hold services in both Oromo and English (for the young Oromos who don’t speak the mother tongue). The Roosevelt Muslim student group is still going strong and has moved its services several doors down to the YMCA. One school administrator told me that they are now joined by a significant African American contingent that has converted to Islam.
From the Archive - Suneson Music Center, Minneapolis, MN
Lake Street USA (1997 - 2000)
We have a session here every Saturday morning. Anybody who wants to play is welcome. We sing our songs, which I love to do. I’ve been singing all my life, since I was five years old. Worked down here on Lake Street about 35 years ago. We had little remote radio broadcast. Had a group called the Circle Dot Ranch Boys. I tried to make a living at it for awhile, but it just didn’t work out.
When I feel good I’m kind of a nut. I’m kind of crazy and it has got me in a little bit of trouble. That kind of led to a few things that weren’t too happy for me. But I got off that now. I sing from my soul and heart. There are two songs that when I sing I always break down and cry. One is called “Old Shep.” It’s about a dog that a person had to shoot. The other is “Be Careful of the Stones You Throw.” Just even talking about it gets to me.
I just love to sing that’s all. I’m just the happiest man in the world if I can just sing somebody’s favorite song for them. I don’t perform anymore. I’d like to get out there again. I’d really like to. I’d sing at any place that would have me, but it just hasn’t come up. So every chance I get I come down here. If I’m singing I’m happy. I’m not singing I’m not happy. That’s my life. Actually it’s about all I live for.
From the Archive - Bubbas, Frogtown (1993 - 1995)
We call each other Bubba, you know, like brothers. But we don’t want to be confused with the blacks in the neighborhood because they call each other brother and sister. We’re not a gang. It’s not a race thing. We don’t even have a name for our group. We’re just really good friends. We don’t go out looking for trouble. We just sit here and have fun.
From left to right: Caveman, Hobbit, Face, Chunks, Chief and Girlie Boy.
Changing Lenses is the product of an ongoing conversation between eminent sociologist Doug Hartmann, Ph.D. and myself. In each post, we exchange what’s seen behind a camera lens and what’s seen through a sociological lens to get at the diversity of perspectives and cultivate a unique look at the human experience. Below is my perspective. Read Doug’s reaction here.
From the Archive - Demolition Derby, Baker Montana, 2001
Looking For Asian America: An Ethnocentric Tour
I had never been to a demolition derby or to rural Montana before. When we first pulled in it resembled a scene from an apocalyptic movie: tidy, rustic shops lined main street, but where was everybody? A lone soul finally appeared to inform us that the derby was in town. Apparently the entire populace of Baker was at this car-as-gladiator spectacle.
An accommodating elderly gentleman in a cowboy hat excitedly explained the intricacies of the sport to us. The sight and sounds of smashing metal contrasted with the somewhat languorous audience that occasionally emitted a cheer. In many ways it didn’t seem all that different from a crowd at an outdoor Saints baseball game in St. Paul, Minnesota.
When my attention turned to photographic possibilities, I was excited to spy the only Asian face in this communal outpouring. He and his wife, both Cambodian, had settled there a while back. In dress and deportment he blended right in, with his worn blue jeans, short sleeve shirt and pocket wallet. But to me, when I look at this photo, he appears to be Photoshopped in. And then I wonder, why do I think that? Is that what I look like when I’m walking around the land of Lake Wobegon—as though I’ve been Photoshopped onto the landscape?
From the Archive - Corcoran Park, South Minneapolis, MN, Lake Street USA 1997 - 2000
From the Archive - Loring Park, Minneapolis, Minnesota (circa 1995)
It was during a one-week workshop in 1981 at the long defunct Film in the Cities in St. Paul, conducted by the legendary Garry Winogrand, that I decided to become a photographer. He said a lot of memorable things that week, including his famous dictum: “There is nothing as mysterious as a fact well-described.”
About the picture taking process itself, he said, “The most important thing is knowing where to stand.” Certainly true about this photo. I was doing a series on pick-up playground basketball (I’ve played in a weekly game of hoops for 30 years) when after a series of ordinary shots, I was fortunate to be standing in the right place as the ball hit me in the head, narrowly missing the camera held to my eye.
Changing Lenses is the product of an ongoing conversation between eminent sociologist Doug Hartmann, Ph.D. and myself. In each post, we exchange what’s seen behind a camera lens and what’s seen through a sociological lens to get at the diversity of perspectives and cultivate a unique look at the human experience. Below is my perspective. Read Doug’s reaction here.
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Big Geno and Little Geno, Minneapolis, Minnesota
When photographing I try to present people as they present themselves and let viewers form their own narratives. A photograph, however, is just a snippet of that person. If you took a thousand photographs of someone, which photograph would be truest? And who decides the truth about any photograph—the person in it, the person who took it, or the person looking at it?
You never know how a photograph will be interpreted. I have photographs that seem innocuous to me that instill fear in someone else. This photograph of a man and his dog, though, often gets a visceral reaction. Recently an installation of about 50 photographs from my Lake Street USA series that included this one was being permanently installed in a public building. We laid them out along the wall deciding which ones should go where.
Perhaps because the scandal concerning Michal Vick, the professional football player whose abuse of fighting dogs was still fresh in the public’s consciousness, or perhaps because I’ve become more cautious in what photographs I deem proper to show in public settings, I voiced that this one might cause trouble. A few moments later an African American man walked by and became upset at what he saw. “This is really offensive to me,” he blurted. “This only perpetuates what people already think of us.” We ended up putting the photograph in a basement room that is less trafficked.
Here’s an excerpt from an interview I conducted with the person in the photograph:
“This is little Geno. I’m big Geno. He’s going to be a security dog. I’m going to take my time with him. I’m just trying to get his neck to be strong. The chain is to put muscles in his chest. Right now he’s young. As he gets old he’ll get used to it.
“Once he sees me with it he know he’s got to put it on. At first he didn’t want to have it on, but now he’s used to it. It’s not being abusive. You can train a dog how you want to train a dog, just like a child. You can raise a child up to cuss out grown people. You know, you just raise your dog just the way you want to be raised up. That’s all that is.”
