Grand Isle

Community rages

standing over the sleeping body, the boney hands of time reach for the women’s throat. the hands force her panicking head just under the surface , a cruel depth leaving the thinest veil of water between life and depth. clearly she can see life carrying on through the surface tension.  telling her self –  if i could just breath, as she drowns in the fluid of her master piece.

The street is a blaze with the dying sun. The traffic wizzing down Ponce De Leon Avenue makes it hard to believe this is a Sunday. the air is soft but the concrete under this mans head is hard as hell. Tucked under the  Atlanta library bus stop i find Curtis, Dirty as a dog in a trash dump and folded dead asleep. Everything around the two of us glows as the sun drops into magic hour. The sound of my shutter somehow rises above the den of street noise to wake Curtis . We shake hands, we say hello , we talk briefly about how he is doing. I ask him if he is o k that i have  taken his photo while he was asleep, he nods his head yes. I grip his palm tightly, inserting a twenty dollar bill………. he say thank you……no Curtis thank you.

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………….. this is a self made report

NEED WORK series

Patrick James Brown

Kingston, Jamaica

United States for twenty years

Atlanta for 6 years

resides at the Atlanta shelter

“ less work as a whole, works is tough for a black man.  Most people pull up and pick up a hispanic. It makes it hard for a black man, racism……”

NEED WORK series

Home depot parking lots fill with men needing work.  The economy and the near stand still in the construction business create vast numbers of needy day laborers.

what is the state of affairs from the street level ? this series finds out from the men themselves.

this has been a self made report

october, and the temperature is 90 degrees, the miami sun seems almost angry. i am throwing back a cuban coffee when this super shady character catches my eye. the lightning bolt tattooed on his cheek arrest my attention and says that tattoo is either self inflicted or received in prison. the blur and fade of the aged tattoo doesn’t reduce it’s dramatic impact one bit. judging by the tattoo’s condition i am guessing it is at least 25 to 30 years old. Unlike today, a facial tattoo in those years was totally unheard of. Only the hardest of the hard would walk with that type of statement.

i down my coffee and burn my throat. Rounding my heels i on the move, i have to meet this guy.

Miami Pete is the mans handle but his filthy yankees hat declares his origin of birth. A home the Pete can neverseem to find his way back to both physically or emotionally.

A petty thief and drug dealer working the streets of Miami is a tough job. A job that is written like a road map all over Pete’s face and body. The story of this mans life spreads across his flesh in jagged ink.

as a veteran of the tattoo world i have come to understand that some tattoos have a much more intense stories than others. One look at Pete and i new the depth of his story could fill a well.

At 53 Pete displays a sharpness that only hard living can create. the flash in his eyes warns me to keep my own two eyes on him at all times. Staying with in arms reach ofPete could be volatile. My camera gear was easy to hock and it was clearly on his mind. i am scanning Pete’s clothing for a weapon and the two of us are playing a gameof intimidation that is the wolf in everyman who bothers to acknowledge it. A very experienced grifter Pete is off the worlds grid and i am clearly on his turf. if i want this story, i got follow Pete down his rabbits hole.

we shook hands with a firm grip and i introduced my self. the sour smell of whiskey spread across my face as Pete said hello. i quickly noticed a tattoo that looked military on his forearm as we were shaking hands. i placed the tattoo on his forearm as vietnam era. Pete seemed impressed and said he did his time in hell. i thanked him for his unmentionable sacrifice to preserve my freedom.