Portraits of Addiction

Portraits of Addiction

http://motherjones.com/photoessays/2012/03/portraits-addiction-bronx/mannyquiles-arnade

A Manhattan banker shoots portraits of drug abuse, sex work, and homelessness in the Bronx. —Photos by Chris Arnade/Text by Nicole Pasulka

In his portraits of sex workers and the homeless struggling with addiction, photographer Chris Arnade is neither demanding an increase in social services or gawking from the sidelines at others' degradation. At their core, his "Faces of Addiction" portraits are simply about watching and listening to other people. Arnade repeatedly declares his one simple objective at the end of each detailed photo caption: "I post people's stories as they tell them to me. I am not a journalist. I don't try to verify, just listen."

If his pictures challenge our expectations, maybe it's because Arnade defies stereotypes, too. The child of Southern civil rights activists, he got a Ph.D. in physics from Johns Hopkins before becoming a banker. During our interview, he explained his tendency to cross boundaries, saying, "I'm happiest somewhere I shouldn't be."

When you don't talk to someone, it's very easy to judge them. You can build up a narrative where they kind of deserve what they got. When you talk to someone, it's much harder. Jamie, one guy I've gotten to like a lot, lived underneath the Bruckner Expressway. Whenever I'd go back to see him, I'd bring him whatever he needed because the winters are tough. We'd smoke a cigarette and just talk. He had a cat, Mimi. Mimi was a female and looked like she was going into heat and I asked him if I could get Mimi spayed. Then I asked some people for help trying to get Mimi spayed. I kind of got more offers to help Mimi than I did to help Jamie. I appreciate all those offers, in both cases, and people have been very helpful for Jamie, but there's the mentality that an animal doesn't deserve what it's gotten but a person does, because maybe they've done something to deserve that.