This photo is edited.
It is a still life built on my constant companion, ready-made to support my biological needs. Freshly filled. Freshly emptied. Freshly rinsed. As soon as the still life is captured, this goes back to being a urinal. Beside it sit two and a half slices of cheese I found in my blanket this morning, which I evidently did not finish last night, and the carcass from a bunch of red grapes. The silicone mat is a gesture at hygiene, and it improves grip so the urinal doesn’t slip and fall quite so easily. This is on the forward end of my left side table. Everything I eat is kept on my right private table. Everything that I’m discarding goes on my public table. This is more ceremonial than practical, but the habits of humanity are tough to shake.
I was sorting what is public from what is private long before there was ever a camera in the room.
I don’t believe it is possible to honestly portray yourself in a single photograph. There are too many split-second decisions we have to make in order to even know what our true self is, much less project that outwardly at all times. Even though I want to show what it is like to live in a nursing home in a way that is entirely authentic, and even though that seems easy on its face, I find it very hard to know what to show you and what to hide. Should it be pretty or should it be raw?
My personal space is contained within the area of three sheets of plywood. One is taken up by the bed. One is taken up by the aisleways. What is left contains everything I own, at 46. On the other side of a curtain lies a man whose life support requires a lot of beeping and humming. He is nonverbal, and the TV stays on low 24 hours a day.
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I bought him a board he could point to. He nodded that he wanted it. I have never once seen him use it, and now I don’t know how much he actually understands. He is entitled to his half of the room, sounds and smells included. I just don’t know what sharing a room with him should look like.
As an advocate, I want to wear the photojournalist’s hat and show the messy, embarrassing parts. As a photographer, I want to compose, to point you at one detail or one question. When I compose, I choose what to leave out. When I don’t, everything goes in the light, including what I would rather keep in the dark, and that looks like fishing for pity. I grew up around a lot of dysfunctional attention-seeking and I avoid it to a fault. I have to show it anyway. Both are true. The beauty here doesn’t distract from the facts, and the mess isn’t the whole story.
As a man, it is hard not to feel like my environment reflects on me, as humble as it might be.
It should not be this humble.
The whole room is shelves. Most of the time I look at them and see ten pounds of shit crammed into a five pound bag. Other days I see evidence of resilience. It is both. This is the compromise I have chosen between form and function. By having a room like this, I can create the sort of art I want to create and keep my mind busy. That is worth the clutter. Well, most days.
There is no shame in editing. The shame is in manipulating, and building a reality that isn’t there. The difference is not how much you leave out. It’s whether what’s left changes what the viewer would conclude. Honesty is doable. It just takes a lot of mental effort to find balance and perspective sometimes. No single photograph can carry the whole burden. One image can be composed and another can be a mess, and between enough of them, truth accumulates.
