HANGING USER

Toronto, during CONTACT Foto Fest, is Foto-mad…..

I made my way there last Sunday to hang USER at PIKTO…..

Johan Halberg-Campbell is the gallery-meister there and
was a great help over the Sunday afternoon and Monday
morning it took to get the pix on the walls…..

The vibe at PIKTO, and in Toronto in general, foto-wise, is
just great. There are enough fotografers there, and support
for the industry, to make a critical mass. Plus, there are tons
of people actually doing stuff…..makes a welcome change from
Ottawa which feels, in comparison, like a backwater.

(Now, before all you Ottawans go and get yer knickers all in
a knot…..I say: Face facts. I say: Bring it on……)

Chris Buck and me

Don Weber in the PIKTO studio

Stayed at the Hyatt on King Street. A bit too ritzy for a
mofo like me……

Monday morning finished hanging the show. People looked…..

USER OPENING

The opening went from 6 to 10 and there was a constant
stream of folks thru the gallery, looking and talking and
drinking.

I was way too distracted to actually snap some shots of
the event so I’ll just throw up some random views from
this weekend instead.

View from the Sheraton

Views from the street

View from the car

THE INFAMOUS BONNEY

Ben Walker interviewing Jimmy Bonney

I first met Jimmy Bonney in the summer of 2007. Down on the
corner where I shoot USER.

Jimmy was on a stolen bike, was high, was looking, as usual, for
the main chance. Jimmy was also very funny and full of energy
and good humor. He’d been on the street or in penitentiary for
24 years, since he was 16 years old. He’d been using drugs for
as long.

I met Jimmy a few more times that summer and again the
following year. He always came over and tried to bug me.
Not in a violent or malicious way. He liked goofing around.
That’s just the way he was. Funny.

Here’s the photo I took of him and his friend Alesha:

Jimmy and Alesha, Ottawa, 2007

Then, a week or so ago, on a Sunday morning, out of the blue,
I get a phone call. It’s from a woman named Lucie. She wasn’t
quite sure she had the right number.

She was trying to reach a photographer. “I’m a photographer”, I
told her. She asked if I knew a guy named Jimmy Bonney.

I told her I did. I told her I had photographed him and that I have
often thought of him since we first met.

She told me she knew him, was helping him. She told me that he has
been straight for almost 2 years. And she told me that he has thought
of me, too. I asked her if she would ask him if we could get together.

We did. Get together.

Jimmy Bonney, May, 2010

Ben Walker, who is making a film about the USER project, asked Jimmy
if he would mind being interviewed. Jimmy jumped at the chance. He
talked for 2 hours, told us his history, both ancient and modern. Told
us that the folks at Harvest House had taken him in, had been patient
and let him fuck up a few times before he decided, on his own, to leave
drugs and crime and the street behind. He told us he’s been sober for
21 months and ten days. He told us that he went from a grade 3 level
of education to getting his high school equivalency in 9 months. He
told us he now has a drivers license.

He still carries scars, both physical and psychological, from his life.
But they are healing.

So, as I get ready to go to Toronto for the opening of USER, as I think
about photography and it’s uses and abuses. As I think about how, so
often, what I do feels so useless, I’m left with this moment in my mind.
I’m left thinking, despite myself and my non-sentimental feelings about
this life, that all is not lost.

Me and Jimmy Bonney, May, 2010