May 16, 2007
Inge Morath Award
Jessica Dimmock
Image from Jessica Dimmock's The Ninth Floor.
Last year, Jessica Dimmock received the Inge Morath Award which was established to encourage young female photojournalists. She shares with us how she found and completed her award-winning photo documentary 'The Ninth Floor' about several people in a New York apartment living with drug addiction, and why it's important to have an award only for women.
How did you find the subject of your photodocumentary?
I was studying at the International Center of Photography at the time. I was on the street fiddling with a digital camera because as of then I had not used one before. I was approached by a cocaine dealer who made it clear that he was a dealer. Over the course of the conversation he made it clear that if I wanted to follow him and photograph him I could. He took me to a variety of places - parties, people's apartments, the owner of an escort service. The last place he ever took me was the apartment where the project starts. He was arrested shortly thereafter, and I have never seen him since, despite trying to find him. But because he brought me to this apartment and made the initial introduction I went back with prints from my first visit. After that, and some slow starts, I was allowed to return at any time.
Learn more about the Inge Morath Award
What obstacles, in terms of time, interest, finances, personal motivation, did you find in pursuing it? The apartment could be a very awful place to spend time in. It was hard to put the time in and to know when to stay or when to go. Sometimes I spent the night, or several days on end. That could be very difficult and very claustrophobic, but it was an important component to my understanding of what was going on. And at this point I have spent a great deal of time with some of the people from this project and I care about them a great deal. I recognize that I cannot change them, nor save them, but they have been incredibly open with me and there is a lot of trust in our relationship. It is hard to watch these patterns get repeated and to watch the pain that occurs.
How did you hear about the Inge Morath award? I don't recall. I believe several
editors let me know.
What do you think of the concept of having an award only for women? I think it is incredibly important. I have watched the occasional blog discussion where people ask why there is not such an award for men. I would hope that people understand what a male dominated field this is (men are therefore already disproportionately rewarded), and thus it is important to encourage and support women in photojournalism.
What was the feedback from people who discovered your work via the Inge
Morath award? The feedback has been very positive
What projects are you working on now? I am in the final stages of turning this project on addicts, which I call The Ninth Floor, into a book. I am also working on
a story in Cote D'Ivoire.
Keep an eye on the Magnum Blog for an upcoming interview with Claudia Guadarrama who received the Inge Morath award in 2004 for her work on Central Americans trying to cross the border to Mexico in their attempt to eventually reach the U.S.
Published on the Magnum Blog on May 16, 2007
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