I would say that I was new to photography when I met Jim. It’s not a lie. I was new to photography when I met him…. I STILL am new. If it’s January 1st, 2020 as I’m first writing this, that means I’ve been on this adventure for almost 4 months now. It’s been so crazy but that’s probably another post for another day…
Jim was the first portrait I ever took. I had no desire to take portraits. Honestly, it’s because I was/am afraid to take them. It’s a lot of pressure to try and take a photo of someone that, in my mind at the time, “captured” them or showed them in a flattering and attractive way. Jim taught me an important lesson that day, though. To take a portrait - a good portrait - of someone isn’t to take a photograph where people look at it and say, “What an interesting picture.” Instead, the idea (at least for me in my newbie brain) is for someone to look at it and say “What an interesting person.” As a minister by trade, I find something creepy and slightly abhorrent in the idea that you could “capture” someone in a picture. Maybe this is what freaks out Amish people about photographs. They have an idea that it takes away a part of someone’s soul and traps it. I think if I do my job well as a pastor and a photographer, I’m not capturing their soul; I’m helping the person bare it, helping them reveal it and see it for themselves.
I met Jim in an alley of a town that I think tries to forget or hide the fact that people like Jim could exist in their town. He’s not “homeless.” He has a place to stay. But he lives in the dumpsters, the alleys, the panhandling, junk selling side of life. As I was walking by taking pictures of nothing really, he asked jokingly if I wanted to take his picture. I asked him if it was ok. He said it was, I brought up my camera, and instead of snapping, we began talking. The camera did this weird thing of creating enough distance but it also created a sense of intimacy. I wasn’t really a person in front of him, but yet I was really trying to see him. When we were done, I showed him some of the shots I took. It was at this moment, for the first time in my life, I realized the power of photography. He teared up. He said he hadn’t felt that handsome in years.
It’s not a particularly flattering picture of the man. I could have touched it up, hid some of the wrinkles, fixed some of the blotchy skin, found a pose where his eye didn’t look so crooked. I know how to do all that. But I don’t think it was how he looked that mattered to him. I think it was that someone treated him like a human. Someone took the time to find his humanity, to think that he was important enough to be photographed, to take care in trying to see who he really was and share it with others. I’m not sure I knew that’s what I’m doing. I know I wasn’t intentionally doing it. Jim was teaching me how to do it.
What I’ve found with the portraits I’ve been taking is that people don’t necessarily respond to the “nice” photos I take of them. They respond to the ones that say something true about who they are. And when you nail it, when you get that one shot where the person looks at it and they get a certain… I don’t know the right word here… joyful? surprised? awestruck? all of the above?… look on their face… I don’t know… You realize you’ve done something. You’ve touched someone. You connected with their humanity. It’s become like a drug to me - this idea and feeling that a photograph can make someone’s life better even if it’s just for a moment.
I may be rambling… It’s one hour in to 2020… But that’s what the Friendship Ark is to me. It’s an attempt to humanize the people I meet. Some I’ve known my whole life. Some I’ve only met briefly and will probably never see again. In a world that tries to dehumanize us in so many ways, I don’t want to lose sight of my firm and deep belief that each one of us is a precious child of God. I don’t want the person sitting for me to forget that there’s a light inside of them, that they have value and worth just for being who they are. Maybe most importantly (and probably the biggest challenge) I want you who see these portraits to see and know their humanity too - that they live and love and laugh and lose just as you do - that we all struggle together - that none of us get out of here alive… So we need to root for each other and help each other. And the hope is that if you can look at a simple photograph on some guy’s website and encounter the humanity therein, that maybe when you’re out and about and you run into your own Jim, or Michael, or Kim, or Chase, or Jennifer, or whoever else I can get into my ark, you’ll see the humanity in them too. The original ark carried life through the storm to God’s promise never to leave us. I hope my ark can remind you, can remind me, can remind people like Jim that this promise is still true today….
If you would like to be a part of “The Friendship Ark”, please see the “Contact + Info” page in the drop-down menu and let me know….