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Elizabeth Lane (Philosophy major)
“The Elderly Among Us” (Photography project)
Sponsor: Penny Dhaemers, Visual Studies, Architecture
Project Description
Elizabeth, a Philosophy major, will carry out a documentary photography project that will visually address the reality of dwindling resources for senior services in Berkeley, concurrent with an increasing elderly population as the baby boomers blossom into the later stages of life. By photographing senior services throughout the city, she will portray the joys, struggles, and experiences of Berkeley’s elderly, as well as opportunities to practically address issues related to aging. Elizabeth’s project will be composed of approximately six photo essays, totaling 30-50 11X14 prints. Each essay will be presented alongside resources so members of the community can obtain senior services and/or support them through political advocacy and fiscal or volunteer contributions. Inspired by recent photographers concerned about social issues, her project is a critique of a tendency of some artists to use social hardship to, at best, serve as an educational device, and at worst, satiate and entertain, thus inducing complacency.
Scholar's Photo
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Elizabeth looks at negatives in the photo lab
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Scholar's Journal
This summer has been a conglomerate of frustration, joy, excitement, false hope and pleasant surprises. Every time I thought I new what was going to happen next, I found out that I was wrong. Immediately at the beginning of the summer, I began photographing the daily lives of two women (Johnnie and Cheryl) who live at Mabel Howard apartments. I thought this endeavor would be a rather short one. I actually met with each of the two woman 4-5 times this summer, for 1-3 hrs at a time. However, although it would seem that it would take approximately a month to complete the photographing, say if I photographed each of them once a week, that did not happen. On a number of occasions each woman either forgot we were supposed to meet, or was not feeling well. Though I understand that these kinds of things happen, and I don't blame either of them for canceling when they needed to, the unpredictability of this scheduling circumstance became particularly frustrating. On one occasion I spent an hour to get to Mabel Howard Apartments (on AC Transit) only to find that the woman I was supposed to meet with had forgotten we were supposed to meet. Instead of photographing that day, we rescheduled; then I spent another hour going back home. On days I was not photographing Johnnie or Cheryl, which took up the bulk of my time during the summer, I went door to door and asked the employees of businesses located on Telegraph, College, San Pablo, University and Shattuck whether or not any of their co-workers were 65 or older.
Sometimes people wanted to make appointments with me, sometimes people gave me 10-15 min. of their time to interview and photograph them, sometimes people were so eager to participate in my project that they spent a whole afternoon talking to me, letting me follow them with the camera, and referring me to other people they knew who were 65+ and working. More often than not, the few women I encountered refused to let me photograph them. One woman talked to me for a half an hour, let me photograph her, and told me she would have the consent form signed for me at the end of the week. When I came back, she had not yet looked theform; every time I came back there after, she apparently was not in the store. I don't know if this is a result of coincidence or if she changed her mind and just didn't want to tell me. Beginning in July began photographing older members of the Gray Panthers.
First, I was hopeful; I began by photographing a group supported by the Gray Panthers called the Raging Grannies, a singing group of older woman dedicated to promoting peace and social justice. However, arranging to do a group photograph of local Gray Panther board members, only three people showed up. We had to wait a month for the next opportunity to photograph, which was completed successfully.
Just after beginning to photograph older members of the Gray Panthers I reached a stagnant point--my photographs, in addition to rendering banal compositions, revealed a lack of attention to details while photographing. I was completely burnt out due to the many frustrations related to appointment cancelations, the fact that I couldn't figure out why working woman didn't want to be photographed and ruined film (due to faulty equipment, inexperienced photo lab staff, and my failure to trust my intuition that there was something not quite right about the chemicals that day). So I stopped. I just completely stopped photographing--for about a week and a half, or so. During this week-plus I began immersing myself in the legal aspect of age discrimination in the work place, local and regional articles related to senior programs, senior housing, social security, houselessness among older adults and comprised a list of other library materials to read. It turns out that it is this break that saved me, and quite possibly saved this whole project. The summer had been going by so fast, I hadn't
even thought about beginning the process of finding a place or places in which to show my work next May. Since many galleries are booked 1-2 years in advance, this could have ended up being a big problem. I immediately began looking at spaces, talking to people
and making arrangements and writing proposals for viewing space for next May.
Once I felt like I could start photographing again, I did so with two new pieces of information: 1, I am quite possibly engaged in trying to photograph one of the most difficult age groups to photograph--not technically, but socially. All my reasons for believing this are too exhaustive to list here, but the important thing is that although it is difficult, I also realized that I am only encountering the difficulties that I signed up for, regardless of what I previously expected. The second piece of information I kept in mind when I began photographing again is that I needed to do something different.
Instead of going to more businesses, or calling to try to
reschedule missed appointments with Johnnie and Cheryl, I called St. Mary's, a services center located in Oakland for houseless older adults. A group of social workers there referred me to the hang-out places of people they knew of in Berkeley, in addition to referring
me to activist and formally houseless woman, Judy Jackson.
Although, Judy has health circumstances that prevent her from keeping some of the appointments we have made, we have managed to spend a significant amount of time discussing the circumstances many houseless older adults find themselves in, services available to houseless seniors and Judy's own personal experiences. Judy's generous input will be very useful in providing my viewers with information regarding the process of going from being without a house to sleep in at night to being in a stable housing situation in Berkeley. In addition to this, Judy has committed to personally taking me to the various houseless service centers in Berkeley, introducing me to staff and volunteers as well as helping me construct a visual map of these various services and what it might look like to try to navigate them.
At about the same time I met Judy, my partner and best friend (who on occasions works at Cody's Books) introduced me to Dunkan, a long time friendly acquaintance of Cody's employees. Dunkan sells calendars, flyers, and other short publications on Telegraph in front of the book store and has referred me to many "outside living people" as he calls the people he knows who prefer to live outside. Hate Man is one of the many people Dunkan referred me to, the charismatic, brutally honest, well educated individual credited with starting Hate Camp on Sproul Plaza. After interviewing and photographing Hate Man, I felt completely refreshed and rejuvenated.
It may seem strange to some, but it makes perfect sense to me--who else but someone who is completely sure about their position in life who also happens to be extremely charismatic could inspire anyone such that their previous frustrations and concerns could begin to
dissolve (at least for a short time)? Shortly there after, I successfully completed the last photographing session with Johnnie, was able to go back to asking business employees if any of their coworkers could participate in my project and worked out an agreement about consent forms with Over 60 Health Clinic and obtained permission to photograph there. Since then, I have spoken to three people who have given me insight about why it might be difficult to find women who are working who are 65+ who want to be photographed, in addition to photographing one such woman. As for the Over 60 Health clinic, nothing has materialized since about a month ago when I was given permission to photograph there. I was granted permission on the bases that their clients contact me; none have done so thus far.
Although I have recently encountered people who seem to be promising contacts (other than the Over 60 Health Clinic), I am sure I will continue to encounter difficulties, and I trust that even these will be resolved--either the difficulty will be overcome directly, or the project will begin to move in another direction.
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