by Jeff Sharlet
First published 2020
Jeff Sharlet begins questioning whether words can capture the truth of other people's lives. He picks up his camera instead, taking photographs of strangers and sharing them on Instagram. Between his father's heart attack and his own cardiac event two years later, Sharlet drives through the night, unable to sleep. He encounters the people who inhabit darkness: bakers working before dawn, drinkers at closing time, the homeless and disoriented, addicts struggling on society's edges. Each photograph becomes a meditation, paired with reflections that blur the lines between observer and observed. Sharlet combines images with text in the tradition of documentary artists, creating a work that examines how we connect with suffering and find light in the darkest moments of human experience.
Genres: non-fiction, 21st-century, photography
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, observer-observed
336 pages · Hardcover · W. W. Norton & Company