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

Lake Street USA (1997 - 2000)

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.”