'Jesus (Loves) You' - Limited Edition of 15 Photograph

I like very much to document what I find interesting, even if it sometimes takes me out of what other people think should be my 'comfort zone' I was s civilian photographer in Vietnam and frightened to death, and never forgot that experience and never will. The air was thick with my (an others' fear. I was in Ukraine's Maidan Revolution ive years ago, then in the country's Donbass war as well, still photographing.. Several years ago, I spent a substantial part of a year in the South Central neighborhood of Los Angels documenting the people and the very singular 'look' of the large neighborhood, once a typical LA neighborhood that iis home to a large variety of ethnicities including many immigrants and people of color. In times past a man of my color (white) in that huge neighborhood would possibly be courting trouble, and I found in other parts of Los Angeles when I spoke to others casually of having been in South Central daily, I was often greeted with incredulous looks. But people are people and the idea of being photographed by someone who appears to have skill can be a powerful attractant and I met many= wonderful people and took photos that could not be taken anywhere else in the world, I did have brushes with the area's high crime rate. I met one young man who was in a wheelchair, crippled and paralyzed from waist down because of a drive by shooting when he was seven. I met a man at a neighborhood McDonald's and during out conversations he ranted about mistreatment by the Workers' Compensation system where he had worked. Months lalter police announced they found a 'serial rapist-murderer' through a DNA 'cold hit', and I am sure from the description (no photo was published where I was) that that is the man I spoke with whom I saw as 'crazy' and worked hard to get away from him while he wanted to talk at that fast food restaurant. Tthat was not my first brush with a serial killer. While working at age 18-19 as a waiter at Columbia University's fanciest on campus restaurant, ,a kitchen worker once put his roast beef carving knife to my throat when he had an 'issue' and plenty of anger.and said to me 'you don't think do it, do you?' his knife to my throat. I told him I absolutely believed he would slice my throat but requested he not do so. He laughed at my seeming coolness and put the very long,, very wide prime rib carving knife from my throat and we resumed work. He knew he could slice my throat, and I instantly recognized he could carry through on his threat. My instant recognition assuaged him, and he put the knife down and resumed carving roast beer and other serving kitchen duties. I went with roast beef he cut and served it to a visiting dignitary. At school year's end that freshman year at Columbia College, I stayed over a few days then got a taxi to Grand Central Station to take my transcontinental train three days to my West Coast home for the summer. On the taxi's front seat (then not guarded by a plastic barrier) I saw the "New York Daily News' oj the driver's right seat as we drove down Broadway. to Midtown. ' That kitchen workers' face was on the cover. The headline blared: 'Washington Height Rapist Murderer Caught.' My assailant had serially raped grandmothers in Washington Heights, Manhattan apartment elevators then sliced them. Police were scouring the city for him. When police caught him, they broke open his Columbia kitchen locker and found 'The Knife' he had threatened me with, still with traces of victims' blood on it. He had committed serial murders with the same knife he threatened me with. I had cheated death, and have done so a number of times in my life. I heard he was sent to Attica for life, no parole, but that was before the famous Attica riots, and I have never followed through.to learn more. While spending months in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, literally thousands of Ukrainian police detectives inundated that steel and university city of over one million seeking two serial murders -- young men who assaulted sleepy, drunk or unaware victims in the city's center to rob them while killing them - on one occasion with a screwdriver through the eye and socket to the brain while they videotaped. I was then a central feature in the city center, recognized by all with my big, heavy cameras -- two and three of them. Everybody in tha city almost had seen and recognized me for several years as I photographed. It seems certain the murderers had seen me and surely lusted after my cameras, but I never put my guard down. That probably saved my life, I speculate. They were caught pawning a victim's mobile phone; my embedded photo dates and content shows I was nearby as they killed more than one of their 20 or so victims. Read about them in Wikipedia "Dnipropetrovsk Massacre' or some such as I did. The citizens of Dnipropetrovsk did not learn of the murders as detectives flooded the city - -there was a news blackout in a show of 'Ukrainian Wisdom.' that jeopardized me and others. Here' s the link to the story in 'Wikipedia' to 'Dnipropetrovsk Maniacs' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepropetrovsk_maniacs I do not brag; I just have led a most interesting life with most unusual experiences . . . . and been blessed that each one of these maniacs (and perhaps others I did not know of) spared me.. . john (John Crosley)

Photography:Color on Paper

Artist Produced Limited Edition of:15

Size:36 W x 23.9 H x 0.1 D in

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