How Do You Comfort a Stranger?

Imagine you’re just walking down a street – preferably a safe one – and you see a girl about your age sitting on some steps. She’s just staring into the distance: not moving, not saying anything, and blinking only when the tears make her eyes too heavy. She’s dressed for something special, and even though it’s cold out, she hasn’t got a jersey and the only thing she has on is a fitted black dress and fishnet stockings, red heels thrown aside.

‘Why is she sitting here?’ you start to wonder. Should you be a gentleman and sit down beside her and let her mouth just empty out her story? Is it too late to pretend not to notice her? Perhaps your best option to get away is to pretend you’ve forgotten something and turn back to find another way home. While, in the time you’ve taken to think, she’s turned towards you with a desperate look in her eyes.

“We enjoy warmth because we have been cold,” stutter her lips. “We appreciate light because we have been in darkness... And in the same sense, we can experience joy because we have known sadness.” A tear breaks through her mascara.

Intrigued, now, at what she has to say, your feet draw mistakenly toward her. Your own silence follows. “Sorry,” she stumbles, “I didn’t mean to disturb you, but the air is too pressing for silence.” She begins to rub away the tears.

Confused yet still silent you’re lost for words, your hands start pointing in different directions, supposedly indicating if you can leave. The look on her face makes you stop and just say “Huh?”

She looks where the moonlight sheds an eerie light on the alleyway, takes a deep breath ready to speak and starts weeping again. You stride toward the alleyway, determined to find the problem, and convert into what she must’ve looked about ten minutes ago. Guys don’t walk down the street prepared for this.

Lying by the wall like a clump of old play dough was a baby. Covered in everything; from dirt to after birth. Through glassy eyes you notice light bruises, and even as horrific as the image is, you can’t push your own eyes away.

That tiny baby was a victim and unknown to be so. Nobody knows what happened to it and nobody knows what to do with it. An inconvenience to everybody.

Opposites Don't Attract

“Sometimes I expect more from others because I’d be willing to do so much more for them.”

Corey and I had been best friends since pre-school and despite our differences we always got along well. She was sociable and fun; I was shy and nerdy. A perfect match. We watched 3 year olds programs on Friday nights, danced to music that everyone hated and laughed at the end of every fight. We were happy.

Until her new best friends: make-up and bra’s, took over her life in high school. I couldn’t compete, they gave her boys and popularity, and I gave her kiddy shows, bad music and embarrassment.

A clichéd sad story, my life could never be extraordinary. Corey started commenting on every detail in my life, always berry this and berry that, she never once uttered a compliment without it benefitting her somehow. I was her shame, and soon I was the awkward cling-on that was obsessed with the popular girl.

A couple years into high school and she'd given me the ‘ignoring’ hint enough: she doesn’t want me around anymore. But our mums were still good friends so Corey would be dragged over to my house a few times a year, as awkward and insignificant as I felt I still had to cater for her.

I still remember that faithful day mum told me we were taking Corey home that afternoon. It was a cold winter day, the frozen air caressing my neck, I was wondering around during lunch break trying to find Miss Popular, secretly hoping that she didn’t put on her bad girl act again.

Break was almost over when I peeked around the corner at the back of the school; confusion hit me like a snowball in the desert. They’d broken into the electricity box and were jabbing at it with what looked like scissors?! I knew they were a bit slow in class but this had become general knowledge since first grade! And the cigarette boxes showed their idiocracy clearly.

I stood there and watched as Skye passed Corey a cigarette and then tried to light it. I stood there and watched as she got electrocuted. I was there when she fell to the floor motionless, and when the others ran away… I was there.

The power had completely paralysed her body: my ex best friend, the popular girl, the smoker. I felt almost as paralysed as she was, had it not been for the puffs of warm air I was exhaling I would’ve thought I was merely a spirit.

By the time a teacher came to see what had happened, I already had the deadly wires in my hands, carefully trying to fix the mess they had made, with the motionless body behind me. I was the guilty party.

Surely enough rumours spread like rain, all of them thinking I was the one who killed her. In a way I did, I didn’t try to stop them, I saw it coming, and I just watched it happen.

Those girls never came forward; and without them I had no witness to confirm my truth, so I was expelled from school. So mum schooled me disappointedly. She lost her friendship along with her goddaughter. I was now a shame to my family. No matter what happened, I was always a shame to someone.

The guilt was too much for me, after all that that stupid girl put me through, this was what she left me with:  guilt, helplessness and a section in the newspaper. Why had I not done anything? Why didn’t I find her faster? Why didn’t I know about her addiction? Why?

The questions came from everyone, especially me. I couldn’t handle it anymore, the staring, the rumours, and the hate. So I tried to join her, tried to ask her a few questions myself. You’d think jumping out a car going 120 mph would do it, wouldn’t you?

Well, wouldn’t you?

"Behind Every Beautiful Thing is Some Kind of Pain"

Creating art and recording history are two very similar things. Art is created with the inspiration or motivation of passionate feelings. Photo-journalism is an art; it starts with a change in history and the photographer merely records it to publish to the world so that they are aware of someones unfortunate happenings so they might be aware and try help in any way.

As an evolving civilisation we need this because without some kind of artist publishing some form of happening, no one will ever know what kind of tragedy is going on in another country, town or even someones life.

Many don't understand the importance of an artwork until it becomes a memory with a story hidden behind. Paintings always hold a story behind them and if someone doesn't know it - there's still a painting that shows a lot about how people are living or coping with whatever's going on.

If war photographers didn't go into Vietnam and capture a monk in flames, who would've known about it? He couldn't have done anything to save him, mainly because he was fighting for what he believed in.

Every photographer gets asked at one point in their career: if a man is drowning, would you capture the moment or would you save him?

That's when artwork gets out of hand.