Over eight hundred Americans die from opioid-related overdoses every week — more than six times the number of Americans killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — but that’s not really what Jordan Baumgarten’s book is about. “Good Sick,” slang for the nausea that follows heroin injection, is about his neighborhood in Philadelphia.
“It isn’t a truthful documentation of what the opioid epidemic looks like — it’s a project about the feeling of a neighborhood in the grips of that epidemic,” he said. Baumgarten avoided photographing needles, paraphernalia, or active drug use because he’s “not exactly sure that kind of didactic imagery adds anything to the conversation.” BRIGHT spoke with Baumgarten about the opioid epidemic, photographing in your home, and photography’s sticky ethical quandaries.
BRIGHT: What was the hardest moment of the project?
JB: The hardest moment was when I witnessed and intervened during the attempted rape of a sex worker. After the attempted rapist ran off, the sex worker refused to wait around for the police — she felt that because she was breaking the law she wasn’t eligible to receive the help of the law. This situation is not uncommon, although it was my first encounter with it. I think about it all the time, I wonder if it had happened to her before or if it has happened since. It breaks my heart. Of all the things I’ve seen throughout the course of this project, I think this moment is the one that replays most often in my mind.
BRIGHT: You photographed this in your own neighborhood in Philadelphia, how did photographing in your home affect your work?
JB: I think living in the neighborhood impacted the project more than photographing in the neighborhood did. Constant immersion and engagement leads to a deeper understanding of place: things which are unfamiliar become familiar and the rarely seen, momentous events become outliers. Commonplace moments that exist along the periphery are the foundation that life is built on. Living here allows me to identify and differentiate between the systems of this place and my photographs exist within the moments that confirm or confound those systems.
BRIGHT: How has Philadelphia evolved? Has drug use always been an obvious issue?
JB: Philadelphia is always evolving and changing, each neighborhood has its own life cycle. The area around our house is currently being developed at a breakneck pace. As with any rapidly gentrifying area, the more vulnerable individuals get pushed out to more remote neighborhoods, which are sometimes very dangerous and volatile places.
Alongside this ongoing exodus of poor and vulnerable families, Conrail and the City of Philadelphia organized the demolition of a homeless encampment. It was poorly handled and I actually think it was just a PR stunt to make it look like they were doing something about homelessness and the opioid epidemic. In reality, there weren’t enough services, shelters, or rehab spaces to help everyone, so many of the people now live on the sidewalks underneath the train overpasses. Addiction and poverty are still major issues here — they’re just getting moved around.
BRIGHT: Have you seen changes since the opioid epidemic became a national conversation?
JB: The addiction problem has been going on for a long time, especially in North Philadelphia. Things are changing for sure — they have to — deaths from opioids continue to rise and show no chance of slowing down. Philadelphia’s Mayor Kenney has created a task force to combat the opioid epidemic and is entertaining the idea of safe injection sites. Is that a solution? No. But, you can’t help people if they’re dead and we need to keep people alive so they can get the help they need when they’re ready.
The nationwide conversation around the opioid epidemic is changing the way we discuss addiction on a societal level — there’s more understanding and compassion where before, there was only anger and fear. Pennsylvania Governor Wolf has declared the opioid epidemic a statewide disaster and a public health emergency, which makes more resources for both education and recovery available.
Just the other week, the city’s health commissioner urged residents to carry the opioid overdose reversal drug Naloxone with them. The city has a standing order at all pharmacies so anyone can obtain Naloxone without a prescription — I carry it with me everywhere I go. These are the beginnings of some important steps.
BRIGHT: You’ve talked about struggling to balance telling the story and being respectful to your subjects, particularly in reference to the photograph above. How do you find that balance?
JB: It’s a difficult problem to solve and it’s something that I genuinely struggle with. I was trying to be conscious about how the image was constructed and what was and wasn’t readable within the photo. I tried to put a physical distance between us as well as concealing her face. This way, the image becomes about the idea of her and the circumstances in which she exists, instead of about her specifically. The photograph represents a larger narrative rather than the specifics of her story.
BRIGHT: You also mentioned paying her which isn’t something photographers always speak openly about. How do you navigate the tricky ethical quandaries of paying subjects, particularly when addiction is involved?
JB: Photographers don’t have problems paying sources — I believe journalists, photojournalists, and documentary photographers do. I’ve never claimed to be any of those. I acknowledge that I have far more to gain from making that photograph than she does. There is an unavoidable power dynamic between all photographers and their subjects, and this can be a complicated relationship to navigate.
The migrant mother photographed by Dorothea Lange was never compensated and felt no tangible benefit from being the subject of Lange’s photo. This image went on to be the face of the Great Depression, cement Lange’s reputation, help earn her a Guggenheim, and gave her a permanent place in photographic history. How does one determine compensation for that? No monetary compensation? Why not? She posed for a photo and shouldn’t she be paid for that? Models get paid by photographers all the time, why should untrained, non-professional models go unpaid?
People need money to support their needs — bills, rent, food, children, or heroin, sometimes all of the above. Yes, this woman may be addicted to heroin and she also may be a sex worker but you can’t assume that all money brought in goes towards supporting an addiction. You can’t spend food stamps on rent — sometimes you need cash. Furthermore, who am I to judge someone else’s needs or the way they spend their money? I don’t believe that I know what she needs better than she does, it’s condescending to think otherwise. I believe your question is part of a much larger and worthwhile conversation about exploitation and ethical boundaries within the field.
BRIGHT: This is a very different representation of the opioid epidemic than we’re used to seeing. Why was this the way you chose to cover it?
JB: This reminds me of Gregory Halpern’s 2013 essay on documentary ethics:
“…the presumption of white academics who believe that they are capable of determining how poverty and marginalization should or shouldn’t look is ludicrous. And here is where viewers’ fear, guilt, and repression play an important role.”
Again, I’ve never claimed to be a documentary photographer but that quote brings up a good question: Who does get to determine representation or how something is depicted? Yes, this a very different representation of the opioid epidemic but that’s all it is — a representation. I was interested in creating a psychological space to better communicate experience. Is this project a truthful representation of the epidemic? No. Is this project a truthful representation of experience? Yes. It might not fit neatly into the other coverage, but I think anything which expands the conversation and opens new lines of dialogue is a step in the right direction.
“Good Sick” is published by GOST Books and can be purchased on their site. More of Jordan’s work can be found at jordanbaumgarten.com.
