I came up with the idea for this photograph a couple weeks after a close friend cut off his thumb and his index finger, and cut his middle finger and ring finger. They were able to save his thumb, but he lost his index finger, all due to a part-time job as a carpenter making just above minimum wage.
I had a hard time deciding whether to post this on Steemit, let alone taking the photograph. I kept reapproaching the concept wondering if it was capitalizing off of his loss, and I also kept asking him if it would be okay to take this photograph. In the end, he said it was cathartic. It was taking a hard experience and making something beautiful out of it. I told him I would give him 50% of whatever I made off the photograph, but even that felt wrong. I know he deserves and should receive every bit of profit this photograph generates. It took me 3 months before I could shoot it, and have resolved to give him every bit of profit in support of his future.
To me, the photograph represents the tension between what was and what we wish were there. There's often a disconnect between the ideal future, and what really happened, and it's hard to sober up and pay close attention to the real results. I had to ask myself if this was a valuable photograph for the spectator to see, if it was worth posting if there were no immediate benefits for myself, and the answer was yes. I came home tonight from a difficult conversation with another friend tonight. We had an argument over existence, whether or not it was worth existing if life was far more painful than it was pleasurable or rewarding. They argued that no, if life was any more painful than it already was, then it would no be worth living. But I argued that even if life was only pain, it is still better to have lived through it than had nothing at all.
I think there's a certain optimism I have to hold in order to believe that, and I do. Even during bouts where I'm suffering from extreme kidney stone pain, something in me realized that it was better to have experienced that to have experienced nothing. Some part of it was worthwhile. This is the sort of optimism I look for in friends, and its that sort of optimism I found in my friend Levi, the subject whose hand is featured in this photograph.
If you're reading this and you're suffering, I'm not going to tell you that it could be worse and you should be grateful for what you've experienced. But I do want to say, no matter how bad it gets, life itself is what makes it worth it. It is better to have something.. anything.. to have nothing at all.
Best,
John Dykstra