I made this video with some of the pictures from the Unseen Women Series along with music by my friend Natalie Womack . It turned out to be a really powerful combination, more so than I expected. Even though I was with Natalie in the studio when the album was recorded, and I have worked with the pictures many times, when I started doing the last playbacks on this I found myself getting emotional about it. For several years I have been working on an artistic series on abuses of women.
The mood of this series is dark but I think that it will be a worth while endeavor and those that have seen it have had very strong reactions to it. This series was inspired by the many people that have confided in me over the years. I have often been in the position of consoling and advising someone that had been hurt but I have always wished that I could change the situation before someone gets hurt. From time to time I have tried to write and post something that would make a difference somewhere but with little effect. I am not a writer and lack the talent to really influence people in that media. I am a photographer though. Visual images are part of my natural thought processes and I do see people react to the images that I make. So this is my attempt to make a difference, even if only to one person. Many of the images are disturbing but they are designed to be so. They are designed to get attention and cut into complacency. Years ago I had a group of Scouts out on a camping trip. In the evening they were standing around the fire and a group of girls walked past the camp several times. These boys got started yelling things out to the girls that were getting a bit rude. I could have just yelled at them to cut it out but thinking about he situation I realized that though they would to what I told them they would not learn anything from it and would be likely to repeat the behavior when I was not around. The core of the problem was that they were not seeing these girls as people, they were objects. So the next time they came by I walked up to them, explained the problem I was trying to solve and invited them over to our fire. I will never forget the shocked looks on the boy’s faces just before they ran and hid in their tents. This series, though it is more serious has the same principle To make people see a person who has been hurt. Someone who can’t be dismissed by saying “she was just…….” or “she should have…….” This series is my attempt to get people to see what they have not looked at, and hopefully motivate them to change a little piece of the world.