Entry Title: " Children of Grandy Park"
Name: Miko Munden, United States


Entry Description: Portraits of indigent children in a Head Start program in the Grandy Park neighborhood of Norfolk, Virginia, 1995-1996. “Aeisha,” I believe, presents an interesting interplay between her humor, introversion, and the fact that I am reflected in her eye – the supposed window to her soul. “Gun,” a portrait of a fellow named Andre, I thought begged for inclusion on account of what he reported his mother’s occupation to be: drug dealer. “Rico” is my favorite. I remember every detail of that moment. A young man beset by Attention Deficit Disorder, he was very rarely so stationary as he was here.

It’s a modest story, really. In elementary school I had a mild fascination with 35mm cameras but my single mother was too poor to afford one. I fashioned a facsimile from a block of found wood and pretended to shoot instead. While in college, studying graphic design, someone remarked on the ever-presence of my old Yashica. Until then I’d never noticed how often it hung from my shoulder. Several years later, while teaching at a Head Start center based on another college campus, I audited a class in photography and for the first time found myself unexpectedly able to “see” photographs. I remember the moment clearly. I looked at another student’s work and the numbness lifted. It’s an experience peculiar, I think, to the medium and one understandable intellectually but never substantively to those not fortunate enough to be so baptized. I’ve worked in ridiculously commercial, lowest common denominator venues. I’ve done shoots for the money that have made me ashamed. I’ve been gifted opportunities to express myself artistically if not ideologically and found myself lucky. And, on occasion, I’ve been able to appreciate being a “pro” for more than the fact that I’m afforded the luxury of shooting regularly on someone else’s dime.