shutterbugISm

linked from Pond Musing (thanks for sharing Ngiap Heng):

(click HERE to watch the clip on MediaStorm)

About the project The Ninth Floor:

In 2004, anywhere from 20 -30 young addicts lived on the ninth floor of an elegant narrow building overlooking Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The squatters had turned the sprawling apartments into a dark, desperate and chaotic place.

People hustled, scored, shot and smoked wherever they could. Friends conned each other for their next hit. They slept on piles of clothes on the floor. The power was shut off; the bathroom unusable; the kitchen filled with garbage.Anything of value was sold off.

For nearly 3 years, Jessica Dimmock followed this crew documenting what happened to them after eviction, how they fought to get clean, sank deeper into addiction, went to jail, stared families and struggled to survive.

The power of photography... so real, so factual, so personal. So much so that after watching the entire clip, I felt so emotionally moved that I nearly cried.

This project was spanned over 3 years and Jessica Dimmock documented the day-to-day living of these people with such sensitivity and artistry that it's impossible not to feel a single thing after watching and hearing the presentation. This is really the refined gist of documentary photography: the truth of the moment, the emotions from a single frame.

It's so aesthetically perfect that it challenges the techniques of good photography. For the span of 3 long years, how has this project affected Jessica and her view of the world and society and how has her photography effected her subjects.

I love such photography: it's so imperfectly perfect and it's amazing that she was able to bring us so close that you became the witness of their struggles in life yourself. Such powerful documentation.

* Warning: contains images of drug usage, nudity, graphical violence and hope*

Labels: Inspirations, Photography, Thoughts