Encouraging Words

Over the past few months, as my work on the series Skeleton in the Closet has progressed, I've received quite a few encouraging emails and comments. These come from people who have participated in the series, people who have viewed the work online, and people who have come to the gallery shows.

While I've been curious from the beginning about how art can be therapeutic for people struggling with eating disorders, I didn't go into this series with the specific intention of helping people. I really just wanted to create good work about a difficult subject. So the feedback from people who have been encouraged by the work, found healing in the work, felt less alone because of these images and words, is a beautiful side benefit.

I thought I'd share a few here:

A friend of mine sent a link to your photos about eating disorders, and I just had to tell you how wonderful I think they are. Hearing from the subjects in their own words is so moving, and the photos themselves are amazing. They really do capture that eating disorders don't discriminate, those who suffer from them come in all shapes and sizes...the stereotypes we picture aren't always true. As someone who's battled an ED for over 10 years now, it's very rare to find something that seems to capture how we really feel. I think this exhibition has done that, and I thank you for posting it. Take care.

Keva

Fritz,

I just wanted to thank you for your work; I've struggled with an eating disorder for the past four years (seems like forever) and recently 'relapsed'. It is rare yet inspiring to see such honest, diverse depictions of individuals and their stories. Although it is still a work in progress, I am wondering if I could be added to a mailing list or possibly receive information as to when it will be published/where it will be available - I'm definitely interested in buying a copy and supporting your work.

Thank you so much,
Kristin P

I spoke to you on the 'Face The Issue' message boards quite a while ago. I remembered it the other day and stumbled across the website for your photographs. I just wanted to say that I think you have done a wonderful wonderful job.

Reading the introduction, with the line "I've seen thinner" seems to sum it all up. No matter what people expect or feel, there's always thinner. I think you have shown-in such a beautiful way- that people suffering from eating disorders aren't always thin and are definitely not always people who are obsessed with how they look or how much they weigh.
Everytime I look at your photos I find another quote that I relate to, the words match the photos in both their beauty and complexity.

Make sure you post a link to your photography on the FTI website, I'm sure the others would benefit from seeing it.

Thank-you,

Looloo6

Hi Fritz!
I got your wonderful photo and story today! Thank you so much for putting my story, my experience, into a photo and words so eloquently. I cannot thank you enough!
-Elizabeth L

Fritz,

Great show. It's so hard to do what you have done. It's rare to see
work that balances subject and the visual, complimenting each other
in such a powerful way. It's so easy to make seductive and beautiful
images at the expense of content. You didn't compromise and you
treated everyone with respect including the viewer.

Jim L

Thank you so much for including me in this. I really was surprised at how much I connected with you even at our first meeting. I truly feel like working with you allowed me to let go of my eating disorder in a way that I can celebrate forever. Thank you.

Kaarina

i feel so honored to be a part of it. I'm going to try and make it down to see the show today. thank you so much for being an outlet for me :) I would love to help with your future projects if you find a need for me!

-Megan

My name is Jamie, and I guess I'm bulimic. I stumbled upon a link to your work, and I found it to be very powerful. I am 30 years old, and it made me feel a bit less alone with having an ED at my age when I saw the photos and read the stories of your subjects.



Thank you putting together the skeleton in the closet, it helped remind me that recovery is not some unattainable gold floating way out there.
Lisa



I came across your photographs in "Skeletons in the Closet" and I wanted to congratulate you on how well you portrayed the suffering of eating disorders. I am in "recovery" (however, each day is still a struggle) from bulimia and anorexia and found these photos to be very well done. When most people try to portray eating disorders, they show only the 80 pound, near death girls, and this really puts a real face on the disease. The women in the picture could be anyone- teenagers, mothers, daughters, friends, teachers, doctors, etc. Job well done!

Karly

Thank you so much for the beautiful artwork. I could see a slice of my life (or a slight variation of my own pain) within all your portraits of the women and men that are suffering from various manifestations of the eating disorder. It was sort of walking through a simultaneously very poignant, ugly and beautiful, scary but all too familiar hall of mirrors.

Ana

I just needed to tell you that you have completely been able to capture the soul of so many victims of the eating disorder community with your photos. I was so moved to tears when reading the different stories and looking at the photos. I have had an ED for most of my 50 years on this earth. There is so much that the medical community does not know about this awful disorder and can never begin to uncover. You have captured that pain, the insanity, the torture, the hope, the destruction with your photos. I would love to look at these photos everyday to see that I am not alone. I am not singled out because these disorder crosses all races, ages, gender. Why don't you present this to the psychiatric and medical community? They need to learn how to help us. Thank you so much for taking your time and your creativity to focus on ME.

Debbie
Philadelphia

Fritz,
I just wanted to thank you again for giving me the chance to work with you on your series. This was a huge step in the right direction for me and i'm glad that i got to express this part of myself.
Stephen


Hi Fritz,
I was just browsing through your blogspot and I felt moved to say that you are such an exceptional person and I am so very grateful to have had the opportunity to share such a personal aspect of my life with such an extraordinary artist. Thank you for everything.
Sincerely,

Valerie

The Fire Breathing Bride at Mt Hood Bed and Breakfast

Elizabeth Kirk used to work in the circus. Willie Smith works in politics. Similar enough professions, I suppose, that it's no surprise that they got together. And when they get together, boy to the sparks fly! Literally.

Willie and Beth's wedding, was perhaps the most fun event I have ever photographed. Here's the lineup:

-A goofy, fun-loving couple (for further proof, see their engagement portraits, at Oaks Park);
-One of my favorite outdoor wedding locations (Mt Hood Bed and Breakfast, in Parkdale, Oregon);
-Willie's bosses: Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Congresswoman Darlene Hooley, and Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, and their staffs and families;
-Willie and Beth's fun Cheez-Whiz loving families;
-A groomsman with the funniest toast in the history of weddings. I was laughing so hard I could hardly take a photograph;
-Hoola Hoops in abundance;
-Guests who are in theater, are good dancers, and real pranksters;
-And a jug full of kerosene.

Ah, yes, the infamous jug full of kerosene at the wedding trick. Never seen that one? Neither had I. It was spectacular. I couldn't stop chuckling to myself.

Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Congresswoman Darlene Hooley, and Willie and Beth Smith.

Fritz Liedtke
http://www.fritzphoto.com/

Faces and Facades

Faces and Facades: London, Kenya, Israel

England, Kenya, Israel. Three continents, three cultures, three weeks.

While my work in these places was to photograph those I was there to serve (a medical relief team), my eye was constantly drawn to the local faces and façades.

Whether in Kenya, where the mud structures that have been built for millenia may begin to crumble in a few years; or London, where history crowds each street with magnificent stonework; or Israel, where rubble and ruins signify over 5000 years of culture; wherever you turn you see the texture of civilization.

In among these vestiges of the past, faces reveal themselves: at Hell’s Gate, in Ceasarea Philippi, the adolescent children of a kibbutz giggle and run rampant. In the slums of Eldoret, a woman caring for poor children speaks softly of her endeavors as she shows me her tiny schoolhouse. In Covington Garden, a young girl peers through the crowd at a street performer’s shtick.

While this is a disparate collection of images, there is the common element of the present interacting with the past: my feet on the Roman mosaic of Bet She’an, or a Kalingen elder draped in furs, or a Jewish man at the Wailing Wall with tallit and phylacteries talking on his cell phone. Past and present, stone and flesh, young and old, faces and façades.

Click here to view the gallery.

A Little More Kenya...

While I'm taking an afternoon to 'rest' here in Jerusalem, I'm still editing photographs taken in Kenya last week. Here is a selection of images I am enjoying:

Each day, a few members of our team worked with children in the slums, playing games, singing songs, coloring, and having generally a rather good time. The kids loved it almost as much as the adults.

A school notebook, from Pastor Esther's little school for disadvantaged children in the slums.

A little still life from Pastor Esther's church building.


For the most part, Kenyans walk, bike, or bus everywhere. Like so much of the world, they display an amazing ingenuity in their ability to pack great quantities of goods on the back of very small vehicles....

One morning, we had to arise at 4 am, to take a bus to Nairobi for a safari. The only thing I enjoyed about getting up that early was the early morning light.

Want to see some exceptional photos of wild animals in their native habitat? Go to the library and check out a National Geographic book. This, above, is among the best offered to me at the Nairobi game park in the middle of the day with my heavy-lidded eyes. Actually, I did get a handful of fine images from this safari.

Junior High Hugs

Isn't Junior High just a wonderful memory?

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The Virgin of Bucerias

I spent the past week or so in Mexico, in the town of Bucerias. It's near Puerto Vallarta, on the Bay of Banderas. While there, we were able to enjoy the town's annual week-long fiesta. On the last night of the fiesta, a procession wends its way through town toward the cathedral, with music, dancers, and a float featuring the young Virgin Mary and the Christ child. This is all followed by a spectacular fireworks display in the town square.

My favorite image, above, is of the young girl playing the Virgin outside of the cathedral. Here are a couple more:

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Kenya and Israel

Goatherder, Nellore, India

In the spring of 2005, I had the opportunity to travel to southeast India to photograph medical teams working in coastal villages hit by the tsunami. I documented teams giving free medical clinics; helping rebuild (from the ground up) a destroyed, relocated village; dedicating new wells; and working in an orphanage in Nellore, India. I was with a group from Open Arms International. It was a hot, exhausting, and exhilarating two weeks.

I just received notice that I will be accompanying Open Arms again, this spring, to Kenya, Africa, and to Israel. They will be doing similar work in Kenya, as well as dedicating a site they have been preparing to build a medical clinic and orphanage. The trip will be in March.

Do Kenya and Israel seem like an odd combination? I think so, too, but I'm sure excited to go.  Being a travel and editorial photographer can be exhausting, but very rewarding.

Here are a few more images from India:

Awaiting medical aid, a woman watches as Jodhi writes her a prescription.

San Francisco: The People That You Meet When You're Walking Down the Beach

Surfer from the Midwest

Lost in Thought

Waiting

Blonde


Pink

Diarama


See more of my photography from San Francisco, and around the world, at www.fritzphotographic.com.

Editorial and Advertising Photography

The editorial/advertising/photojournalism/documentary section of my photography website has needed an update for some time. I just completed it, keeping it simple, but including a lot of images not before seen on my site. You can visit the editorial photography page of FritzPhoto.