Categories
SUMMARY

Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue: A Summary

Thanks to all who have contributed to the discussion on Eugen Richards’ ‘Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue’. We have compiled an archive of the posts below for future reference and will also be listed under the reading list page.

In June we will be looking at Larry Sultan’s ‘The Valley’

Categories
BOOKS

Eugene Richards: Books

We are coming to then end of May and ‘Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue’ by Eugene Richards, i know many have been in touch for recommendations of other books by Richards to check out. So here is a comprehensive list for you to enjoy.

Where possible, Amazon links have been provided

Links
www.eugenerichards.com

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COMMENTS GUEST POST

Personal Reflection: Kate Osba on ‘Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue’

Richards’ ‘Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue’ had a big effect on photo editor Kate Osba, her personal reflection is below.
You can find Richards’ images on his site under GalleriesCocaine True, Cocaine Blue

Everyone remembers their first love; their first kiss, first rock song that sounded like its lyrics were written just for them. My first love of a photo book happened by chance (or as I have always assumed, fate) in my college library on a late weekend night. It was my second year and I was trying to get through a paper I had no interest in. Avoiding my noisy neighbors I walked around the library floor and found a corner desk with a lone book with a navy protective cover and no title. I brushed the book aside and focused on my blank screen. While inspiration refused to strike, I picked up the sticky book and opened it, thinking nothing of it. I couldn’t believe what I saw. It hit me within seconds – I was looking at something incredible. I couldn’t stop looking, carrying it around in my bag for weeks, pausing randomly throughout the day to focus on one intense page. To this day, as I sit here looking at the images that haunted me for years, I still wonder why it was this book that found me.

©EUGENE RICHARDS

Something about Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue fired me up like nothing else. This man, Eugene Richards, had gone into one of the worst neighborhoods in New York at that time, alone, and documented a world that I had never been able to see. Growing up as a middle-class white girl in Manhattan, I knew there were parts of my city I would never know. This took me somewhere I never wanted to go to, but couldn’t stop looking at. Every shot was so rough, gritty, intense. At the time I thought to be a photojournalist, one needed to travel to a far off country to document war and suffering, I had no idea it could be a subway ride away.  It’s cliche to say, but those pictures are burnt in my mind. If you asked me to name the situation in each frame today, I could do it.

©EUGENE RICHARDS

To say a plastic coated book in a 70’s style library changed my life sounds silly, but it did. The following summer I interned at Magnum, just to be a few steps closer to the eyes that saw these things. On my first day I mentioned to my boss that Eugene Richards was my favorite photographer, and never to let me see him in person because I might literally have a heart-attack. He handed me a yellow envelope and told me I needed to bring this to Gene Richard, with an address, HIS address in my sweaty hand. To say my encounter was awkward is a generous understatement. While Mr. Richards wife told me to wait a few minutes so that I could meet her husband, I immediately told her that I needed to pee and she offered her bathroom. My response was that I couldn’t handle peeing in Eugene Richards bathroom. This might be the first time his wife was ever scared of an intern. Anyway, I met him and it was fine and I managed to not pee on myself, I met him again a few months later and was less awkward – thank you, red wine.

©EUGENE RICHARDS

I still get that feeling when I see someones work that is great, that weight in my heart, unconscious smile – though nothing will ever feel like it did in that library, but that’s okay, that’s what first loves for.

Reluctantly, I threw the address away.

Kate Osba
iamthewhat@gmail.com

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COMMENTS GUEST POST

Stan Banos on ‘Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue’

Stan Banos of the fantastic Reciprocity Failure blog submitted the following piece on Richard’s ‘Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue’.

When published in 1994, Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue was perhaps the last great photographic shock documentary, and brought with it considerable controversy for depicting a certain segment of society in such a negative, nihilistic manner. My younger self very much believed in the power of those raw, stark, in your face images- believed they were exactly what was needed to expose the crack and heroin scourge that was consuming inner cities across the country, and ultimately help reform a national drug policy long bereft of any possible rehabilitative or positive consequence.

And, of course… nothing happened.

©EUGENE RICHARDS

In the interim, photojournalism has struggled to redefine and reestablish itself in a declining market, and reinvent itself in a new medium, via new technology. And yet the problem remains- critics clamoring for a new visual paradigm in photographic story telling, particularly, a new vision of depicting tragedy, hardship and conflict in a way that can command and engage our attention with those we may not encounter in our everyday lives. No short order in these austere and somber economic times when so many of us are simply striving to survive- or escape.

©EUGENE RICHARDS

Eugene Richards never struck me as the kind of man, or photographer, who was strictly out to shock. The images in Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue have an almost apocalyptic sense of urgency in their madness and desperation, and as only a master photographer can envision and present, many of those same images are also maddeningly beautiful, not unlike the “darker” masterpieces of the Renaissance. His photographs seemed hell bent on rattling you to the very core, so that even if you turned away, they would still unnerve you, haunt you, have at you until you finally removed yourself from your comfort zone and entered their twisted netherworld of existence- the very madness addiction demands.

Obviously, I can’t speak for him, but I don’t think it would be the kind of book Mr. Richards would do today. If anything, his current work is more reflective, more contemplative. The Blue Room  meticulously examines the domestic remains of those forced to abandon their points of origin, and his recent work with disabled vets, while containing many an unsettling and disturbing image, portrays subjects who could well be family members, neighbors, friends. We get to feel the main players out, get to know their stories, their lives- before, and after.

©EUGENE RICHARDS

Although the characters get to speak out in Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue, their voices are lost within the insanity that overwhelms their lives and the numerous black and white enlargements that predominate the book itself. Powerful and significant as it was, perhaps that was the one key and vital ingredient that Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue so woefully lacked- we never connected with the individuals depicted, in fact, it was hard to even think of them as individuals! They were ghosts of former selves not even they would fully recognize, beings seemingly beyond redemption, beyond human connection, and well beyond our empathy…

– Stan Banos

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BOOKS COMMENTS HISTORY

John Edwin Mason on ‘Coke and Controversy’

The following is John Edwin Mason’s response to the post ‘Controversy: Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue’

I’m generally sympathetic to Brent Staple’s critique of “Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue” (now, as I was in 1994). He’s right to insist that the book can’t be properly evaluated without situating it within a society and culture that has been shaped, consciously and unconsciously, by racist ideologies and practices. It does seem to me, however, that the general thrust of his argument misses the most essential point.

Yes, it’s a problem that the faces in the book are overwhelmingly black and brown, although the cocaine problem — contra Richard’s self-defense — wasn’t confined to African-American and Latino communities. Drug use by whites may have been hidden — harder to see and to photograph because of the defenses that social class and racial privilege can erect — but it was a major element in the crisis of the mid-90s. Richards (and the writer Edward Barnes, with whom he worked) certainly should have foregrounded this fact. Not to do so was to reinforce ever-prevalent racist stereotypes about who uses illegal drugs and who doesn’t.

©EUGENE RICHARDS

Staples alludes to, but does not develop, a much more important critique when he says that “Photographs can shock and dismay, but are useless to explain such complicated matters as economic decline [which underpinned the demand for drugs].” This is the heart of the matter.

Photographs, as every theorist and most photographers will tell you, are very good at showing us how things look, but very bad at explaining why they look that way. Documentary work, however, must be as much about the “why” as the “how.” Pretty pictures, scorching pictures, gut-wrenching pictures aren’t enough. Context and analysis are just as important. And this is where Richards fails utterly. Or, perhaps, “fails” is the wrong word. He doesn’t even try.

I’m tempted to say that it was rashly irresponsible for Richards to have published the book without attempting to explain the crisis he captured in his images. This was not, after all, an exercise in fine art photography. It’s documentary, and its purpose is to help us to understand the world in which we live.

©EUGENE RICHARDS

Instead, I fear, many readers came (and come) away knowing less about the drug crisis, rather than more. In the absence of analysis and explanation from Richards, many people would have fallen back on ideas already circulating in the culture. A great many — not all — of those notions would have been deeply racist.

It’s not so much that Richards’ images are decontextualized, it’s that their context would too often have been America’s reflexively racist culture, rather than its history and political-economy. As a result, the photos reinforce, rather than undermine, stereotypes of black and Latino depravity and criminality.

– John Edwin Mason

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BOOKS HISTORY

Controversy: ‘Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue’

It is fair to say that upon it’s release, Eugene Richards’ ‘Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue’ had a mixed reception from both the public and critics. Richards’ depiction of a predominantly black, poor, deprived community was seen by some to ignore the bigger issue of drug use in 90’s America, which was not exclusive to any class, or race.

Those who argued that Richards’ portrayal was biased, and that he was using sensationalism to sell photojournalism cited Richards’ use of cocaine as well as the fact that he had reportedly provided one subject with clean syringes as reason to doubt the validity of the images.

The arguments of bias, drug use and sensationalism in ‘Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue’ are best represented in two NY Times articles, along with both a letter from Richards to the article author, and one in reply to Richards.

Links to these articles and letters can be seen below, along with select quotes from each piece of text

– Matt Johnston

Coke Wars
The original article from the New York Times, By Brent Staples
Published: February 06, 1994

‘Like most of his kind, Mr. Richards is a voyeur, obsessed with the grisly. He is a master of the brutal image, though his is a cold, distant brutality that whispers instead of shouting.’

‘Take note of the needle; it could well be one of those that Mr. Richards says he bought Mariella because the ones she owned were too dull for proper use. Note also that Mr. Richards smoked his share of crack to get a feel for the subject.’

‘Reading and looking, I couldn’t help wonder: why are nearly all of the people in these photographs black? The vast majority of drug addicts in America are white. This could be said of any phenomenon in the United States, of course, but why is the white aspect of drug addiction so consistently invisible?’

©EUGENE RICHARDS

Richards to Staples – Letter to editor
Eugene Richards responds to Staples original article, addressing his use of cocaine, the clean syringes and his choice of subjects to document


‘Brent Staples’s review of “Cocaine True Cocaine Blue” (Feb. 6), my book on hard-core drug addiction, is a continuation of the ancient tradition of trying to kill the bearer of bad news. Mr. Staples’s weapon of choice here is the charge of bias.’

‘when I had completed my photographs, I delivered disposable syringes from a diabetic friend to Mariella. I did so after witnessing her jamming a bent needle first into her arm, then her neck. I knew that this woman I cared for would soon be using the syringes of others in that AIDS-plagued neighborhood.’

‘I did indeed reveal to Richard B. Woodward, the author of that article, that I had tried crack back in 1986, long before working on “Cocaine True Cocaine Blue,” but never again.’

‘Look, “Cocaine True Cocaine Blue” is quite obviously not a treatise on all drugs and drug users in America. It is not about a monthly snort of coke or casual marijuana use. From cover picture and title to the final paragraph, it is concerned with family- and neighborhood-destroying, racism-engendering, hard-core cocaine addiction.’

©EUGENE RICHARDS

Staples to Richards
At the end of Eugene Richards letter to Staples, you can find Staples’ response

‘I share Mr. Richards’ horror at the drug-related carnage in our streets. But he misstates the case when he says I accused him of “bias.” My review contained no such accusation; I worked especially hard to avoid that.’

‘I regret causing Eugene Richards the anguish and ill feeling represented in his letter. I respect his photographic eye and his considerable skills as a journalist. As my review said: “His works cannot be called picture books. He arranges his images to make what amount to visual novels, which he augments with pungent stretches of reflection, dialogue or description.”’

©EUGENE RICHARDS

Review/Photography; ‘Cocaine True’: Art or Sensationalism? By Charles Hagen
Published: March 11, 1994

‘Mr. Richards presents his powerful study with the impassioned anger of a biblical prophet. Many of his pictures seem intended to shock his audience out of any complacency it may feel about the scope or severity of the drug plague.’

‘But the real problem with Mr. Richards’s project is not the story it tells, but the ones it doesn’t tell. The pictures fit within the traditional functions of photojournalism, in which photographers, as surrogates for a middle-class audience, look at the problems of the poor.’

‘That may be too much to ask from any group of photographs. And despite the project’s limited scope, Mr. Richards’s pictures throw a harsh light on a world that is usually hidden from public view and give voices and faces to some people trapped there.’

©EUGENE RICHARDS

The arguments raised by these articles is just as prevalent with the role photojournalism plays in today’s fast paced, seen-it-all-before media audience. If you have anything to add to this discussion of Richards work, or the modern equivalents, drop us an email or leave a comment below.


– Matt Johnston

Categories
SYNOPSIS

Synopsis: Eugene Richards – Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue

Title
Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue

Author
Eugene Richards

Publisher
Aperture, 1994 (Hardback)
Aperture, 1994 (Paperback)


Overview

Writing in the afterword to ʻCocaine True, Cocaine Blue,ʼ Dr. Stephen W. Nicholas writes,
ʻThe United States accounts for five percent of the worldʼs population and consumes 50
percent of the worldʼs cocaine,ʼ with approximately one million American teenagers and
young adults using cocaine for the first time each year, and the rate of cocaine-associated
physical, sociological, or family-related problems doubling nationwide since 1985.

In this powerful and raw book, Eugene Richards takes an in-depth and very intimate look
at the inhabitants of three troubled communities: East New York; North Philadelphia; and
the Red Hook Housing Project in Brooklyn, New York.

Alongside the bold and often graphic black-and-white images, are Richardsʼ own personal
observations and interviews, with additional comment by journalist Edward Barnes. These
interviews, with gang members, addicts, dealers, parents, children, the elderly, sex
workers, police, and the clergy. In one such observation Richards writes, ʻThere were 107
murders, 145 rapes, 3,285 robberies, and 547 felonious assaults in East New York in one
year, in a population of 160,000… This is how we first learn about Americaʼs troubled inner-
city neighborhoods, reading the most elemental and squalid statistics, the lists of atrocities
and casualties, the body counts that are no different from those posted during war.ʼ

In ʻCocaine True, Cocaine Blueʼ Richardsʼ offers a powerful insight, and alerts us to how
drugs can affect the very fabric of our society.

– Wayne Ford

Categories
GUEST POST

Jags Parbha – Why I Chose ‘Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue’

Note: Jags, amongst others, have been suggesting books for us to look at. We aim to choose one at least every 3rd month. If you would like to suggest a book, please email mail@photobookclub.org

“I was introduced to Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue on my first photojournalism course. The cover captivated me – a woman staring into a distance with desperate eyes and a syringe held tightly between her teeth – as if it were the last moment of her life and the syringe was her only possession. I was disturbed and intrigued.

Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue ©EUGENE RICHARDS

Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue documents inner city America during the 1980s, lives consumed by drugs, poverty and gangs, rather like the crime drama The Wire. I’ve always been drawn to work which explores the ‘other side’ of society, requiring the photographer to get under the skin of their subject yet remain impartial, something only possible with patience, respect, tenacity and courage. I was fascinated by how Eugene Richards, being a white man, had gained such trust and done exactly that, allowing him to take such close and personal shots.

Was he wearing an invisibility cloak? How did he do it? How did he develop the relationships? The book redefined the meaning of photojournalism to me – it raised the bar. The term is often overused and the story badly told, but not this time.

Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue ©EUGENE RICHARDS

Picture after picture captivated me, telling me a story and leaving me haunted. I realised that a great photographer not only becomes invisible to their subject but presents their work with a respect and dignity.

If a great picture is a thousand words, this is a great novel.”

– Jags Parbha

Categories
BOOKS

May’s book is… Eugene Richard’s ‘Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue’

Were still looking Richard Avedon’s ‘Observations’ throughout April but a heads up:
Next month for the first user suggested month, we will be looking at Eugene Richards ‘Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue’ put forward by Jags Parbha.
Do you have a copy?

More to follow at the beginning of May

Eugene Richards
Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue

Text from publisher Aperture books
This is a compelling portrait of three communities blighted by drugs and isolation: East New York, North Philadelphia, and the Red Hook housing projects in Brooklyn, New York. With a chilling and informative afterword by Dr. Stephen W. Nicholas, a pediatric AIDS physician in Harlem, Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue reveals how first steps toward solutions to overcome the drug trade have actually contributed to public denial and further isolation of the trapped communities. Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue is a history of our times, a terrifying document that will educate us and promote dialogue.

“Eugene Richards’s wrenching photographic study of the culture of cocaine in three inner-city neighborhoods gives faces to some of the victims of addiction. It provides a shocking and heartrending picture of the damage inflicted by the drug.”

–Charles Hagen, The New York Times

“Eugene Richards’s seventh book, Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue, reaffirms his position as the premier chronicler of the dark side of American life ˜ he is the true heir to the mantle of the legendary W. Eugene Smith.”

American Photo

Copies of this book are still fairly easy to get hold of online and in some good shops (Abe Books link, Amazon link)