John Petrenko Photography and Art Blog: Jim Goldberg

Jim Goldberg is a photographer that is currently with the prestigious Magnum Photographers group. His photographic works are a new form of documentary, the work is much more corrupted than, say, a photojournalist. The photography of his that i have chosen to focus on is his series named "Raised By Wolves." A project where he followed teenagers and adolescents in the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles. This series was shot from 1987-1993 where he interviewed and photographed the teens, their social workers, and the police that wrangle these youths up. By photographing all of these aspects and people, he find a very developed and diverse subject matter that really works with how he presents these images, in a book. That's another reason that I have chosen to talk about him, I feel that possibly my current works is going to be best suited in a book format, possibly not as a traditional book, but maybe an accordion style book (i.e. Ed Ruscha's Gas Station book).

I hope that I can really follow and understand how Jim Goldberg photographs and how he looks at imagery. I want to take as much as i can from him. This book is presented as almost a scrapbook of ideas, photos, film stills, and handwritten texts that help convey the legitimacy of this series. At this book's roots, it is a compassionate tale of the lives of adolescent, displaced and misunderstood youths of urban America. It involves their drug lives, love lives, survival, violence, exploitation, and their pursuit of happiness.