Years ago I sold some photographs as stock photographs. I pretty much quit after my young daughter saw one of my photos in a book and pointed out that the focus of the book was contrary to my values.  The problem was not just the lack of control I had over the way stock photographs [...]

Does a photograph represent “truth?” What makes it truthful? When is it untruthful? If it does convey truth, whose truth is it?  These questions have been with photography since its origins.  They have become more pressing with the advent of digital photography and the ease with which a digital image can be manipulated.  They are [...]

“Much of qualitative research,” writes researcher Michelle Fine, “has reproduced…a colonizing discourse of the ‘Other.’”  So also, she might have added, has photography.  So also has justice. (See “Working the Hyphens:  Reinventing Self and Other in Qualitative Research” in Denzin & Lincoln eds., Handbook of Qualitative Research, 1st Ed.) Nils Christie has spoken of this otherness as [...]

During the last several weeks I turned 65.  I also discovered the field of arts-based research (ABR). These two events are more connected than they may seem.  As I contemplate moving toward semi-retirement, I have been thinking that I might devote more of my attention to the arts and to their intersection with restorative justice. [...]

I was honored and inspired recently to be part of a “Visual Restoration” opening at the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia.  This was a culmination of a two-year restorative justice arts program.  Two large outside murals resulted  and a new book about the project, entitled Visual Representation, was released at this opening.  I was fortunate [...]

Lately I have been tutoring some of my photography students in portrait photography. Since these are one-on-one sessions, we take turns sitting for one another as we experiment with lighting, angles and poses. My portraits on the masthead of this blog and on the CJP restorative justice page were made by Pushpika Weerakoon in one [...]

To keep me entertained during church when I was young, my parents would give me two small plastic dogs – one black, one white – each with a magnet glued to its feet.  When two similar poles of the magnets were put together, the dogs would repel one another.  Turned so opposite poles were aligned, [...]