Here is an image captured by Eddie Adams and reproduced by numerous publications.
It found me at a time in my life when I absolutely despised photography and photographers for holding places in the "Art World". I envied the use of a mechanical device to capture a physically representational image in an instant and reproduce this image more quickly than I could ever dream of doing so as a painter.
I was an elitist who subscribed to the hierarchy of artistic mediums that honored the supremacy of paint. And this was reinforced time and again with each museum visit and each new painting I discovered that reached inside of me to move my soul.
In early 2009 I stumbled into a Dumbo gallery show of Adams' work. It just so happened that a very intense debate over the merits of photography and photojournalism, in particular, had been raging within me. My writings on the topic were becoming more brutal with each session in my journals and on my keyboard.
I had entered the gallery reluctantly and pretty convinced that finally I would grow to completely loathe photography altogether.
Since seeing this image, the only time such anguish crosses my mind is in reflection of who I was and how I have grown.
The phenomena of capturing the instant when a man has lost his life, left me in tears before this image for why felt like an eternity. The ability to reproduce and share this image meant that an entire generation had known this photo and valued it enough to place it before me in a gallery that found me by mere chance.
I have since come to appreciate, value, and refuse no possibility of any medium finding a place in my work.
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