The neighbors’ daughter, West Philadelphia


What do we think? Exploitative, like frames of the destitute? Should she not be seen nor remembered because she’s developmentally disabled, or should I have held back because she had no agency in the moment? She was the grown child of the family in the house next door. I don’t remember her name, and that’s too bad right now. She would sit there with her radio for hours upon end, rocking, literally and figuratively, in that chair. She screamed like a banshee, sometimes endlessly. (She could be heard through the wall.) But she loved my dogs and came to associate me with them. Here, she’s happy to see me. So, I took the shot. (1989 or 1990)

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