Go on; confess.

Background

I wasn’t sure what would happen in 2001 when I gave members of the audience at the Chaotic Art Circus in San Francisco the opportunity to make a documented, public confession. I told one of my assistants that I wouldn’t be surprised if no one took advantage of the opportunity, and that I would consider such an outcome to be an aesthetic success.

Instead, I was pleasantly surprised at the responses, and pleased with the initial results. Each participant thought for a bit, wrote a confession, signed the model release, then posed for a documentary photograph. Not bad, really.

Nevertheless, I look at the first set of confessions as sketches. If I continue with the project, I’ll employ a more thoughtful approach. I’ll probably ask each confessor to consider his or her statement for a few days before submitting it. Then, I’ll document the confession in a “real” environment, not a studio. (Although my ineptitude with studio photography resulted in some pleasing technical mistakes, I think I shall continue to avoid the studio, as I have since high school.)

If you’d like to make a public confession, please do. I don’t know whether or not I’ll be able to publish it and/or photograph you, but making a public confession couldn’t hurt.

Or could it?