The Kwest On Q&A

Charles Jones started taking photos a few years ago after witnessing his brother’s murder. He struggled with PTSD and depression and to help, his therapist gave him an assignment: take out your phone and take a picture of anything you can appreciate when you come across it. In the years since, he has created a stunning body of work, capturing what he calls the beauty in the struggle.

Q&A:

After our conversation the other night about the response to the BBQ Becky incident, I got the impression that Oakland is really struggling with rapid change and displacement of poor people and Black people in the way a lot of American cities have. In your photos, though, I don’t see struggle or conflict or strife. I see a lot of harmony. Oakland looks like it is thriving in your work. Am I off base?

Part of what I’m trying to capture with my photography is the beauty of, and in, the struggle. And by that, I mean all of the struggle, or struggles: Blackness, brownness, the rent, the police. I think that there is a certain beauty to how we survive this shit. Capturing the simple and mundane, without the problematic poverty pornographic intention, is a form of resistance. I have some really dark photos in my files, of some really dark shit, and brutal moments. I used to post that kind of shit to my Instagram page and photo blog, but it felt weird, and kind of disheartening, when my most popular photos were of bloody heroin needles, or taped-up Tech Nines. So I stopped posting that shit. Plus, I just think it’s far more poignant to see people in bad situations making the best of it than it is to see people behaving or living as one would expect them to live in such conditions. And as far as the gentrification goes, I have photos of the tent cities and shit. But there’s honestly nothing I find beautiful about them. Or about the situation in general. So they probably won’t ever see the light of day.

There is an incredible amount of tenderness in these photos: a woman reading a book, two little boys marveling at a puppy, even the woman with her tall can of beer in a paper bag seems to be having a private, almost spiritual moment. Are you actively seeking out these moments?

Yes, I do actively search out relatable moments. Those simple smiles between a father and daughter, or a mother holding her son’s hand as they cross the street, or just a group of old heads laughing and drinking: the shit you forget about, but means everything.

I’ve known you many years and you’ve always been what Sandy Close used to call a super-communicator: a writer, a talker, a storyteller, an outspoken debater, a rapper (if need be), but photography is a new means of communication for you. And a much quieter one. It forces you to be more of an observer, rather than the observer. How did you come to photography all these years later?

I started photography with the strict intention of preserving any kind of idea of beauty, or harmony. I was losing my mind after seeing my younger brother murdered in 2012. I had severe PTSD, anger management problems, and depression issues. I started going to therapy some years back, and in my first session, my therapist asked what I appreciated about life. My answer was “nothing.” At that point, everything was a burden. Life was a burden. I just wanted to kill the nigga who killed my brother, and as many people around him as possible before someone killed me. That was my only desire. And for a while, my only goal. So naturally, I started to resent having a wife, children, and caring siblings. You know attachments. I was ready to be free from all this shit. But, I’ve always been an artist and a communicator, and I’ve always, always always, appreciated the moon. And roses. So my therapist gave me an assignment. She asked me to pull out my phone and take a picture of anything that I could actually appreciate when I came across it. Anything that can put my mind at ease for a moment. Or make me smile.

In the beginning, it was all sunrises, sunsets, and flowers. Occasionally I’d hit the waterfront and take pics of the ocean.

I first saw your photos on Instagram, where I watched them get better and better over the years, until one day I said out loud, “Damn, Charlie’s a photographer.” Did you cut your teeth on social media photography? Did the iPhone play a role in your development as a photographer? What is the role of a photographer when everybody with a phone in their pocket can take clear, beautiful pictures?

Instagram became a huge part of it for one simple reason: I ran out of space on my phone. Once I found out about Instagram, I figured if nothing else, I could use it as free storage for my photos. Then I discovered the filters, and my artistic interest was piqued. I don’t even think I followed anyone for my first few months on Instagram. I was just taking, and then posting, pictures that made me feel better about breathing. And from there, I gained a little bit of an audience. People started calling me a photographer. At first, I resisted it. Out of respect for the great photographers that I know personally, I couldn’t call myself a photographer back then. At first, all I had was a phone: a shitty Metro phone with a 5 megapixel camera. But people were calling me and texting me and telling me they were impressed with my photography, that I had a great eye, and a few people were trying to buy prints of my Instagram photos! That fucked me up because they could have easily just copied the photo and printed it themselves. But, like, they wanted it signed and shit. I can honestly say it was one of the first things that made me feel good without making me feel guilty after my brother’s murder. Because I was going through a heavy bout of survivors guilt at the time.

We’ve known, and learned from, some incredible photographers, including Rick Rocamora and Joe Rodriguez. I see a lot of Joe’s sensibility in your work: finding the humanity in the grime, for lack of a better phrase. Were you influenced by Rick or Joe’s work or any other prominent photographers?

Joseph Rodriguez has definitely been an influence on me, probably the strongest one outside of Gordon Parks. Both of them dudes are/were able to capture the grime in ways that make it glamorous. That’s kind of what I’m after. That’s my role as a photographer. Or at least the one I’m trying to take up. As for the greater societal or artistic role of photography? I think it’s about preservation. Capturing a moment that can never be replicated perfectly using any other medium. And Truth. Imagine what we could be today as human beings if we had photographic evidence of whether or not Jesus existed? Let alone walked on water. Or photos of the great libraries of Alexandria. Or the gore and brutality of the Roman Colosseum. Photography, unlike any other art form, captures real life, real moments, and makes them forever. It’s probably the most important of all of the visual arts for its historical impact alone. So I think it’s great that we live in a time now where anyone can whip out their phone and take a clear beautiful picture, in the moment. Of the moment.