Our hearts were crushed in perfect unison as the doctor announced the results of our daughter’s tuberculosis test. My wife and I just looked at each other in disbelief while we blurted out a hundred questions. During the following weeks the three of us dreaded each trip to the hospital. Needles were stuck into my trusting child who was not even old enough to talk, nor understand why we were in support of her torture. Worse for me was having to gently lay her onto the metal table with the articulated x-ray device hovering above, knowing what was about to be sent through her tiny body. I felt helpless, so my only course of action was to create.

X-ray I is a mixture of elements which recur in many of my photographs: a hand, a musical instrument, and in this case, a small polaroid copy of my daughter’s chest x-ray.

Both Rib I and Rib II combine a rib, a symbol for my daughter’s condition, with South American religious symbols of suffering. Darts I, adds blow gun darts from the Amazon, piercing a woven belt from Peru.

In Darts II, blow gun darts are placed upon a book of Braille, with the lighting adjusted to make the shadow of the darts resemble a rib cage. Symbols in this and most of my images are metaphorical; the Braille implying helplessness combined with needle sharp blowgun darts. The Braille may also suggest the blindness of the doctors who had repeatedly administered the tests incorrectly on my daughter, as it turns out that my daughter had never been sick in the first place.

Wrapped ribs, depicts floating human ribs wrapped in strips of old cloth.