Ghetto Gospel

I stumbled across this absolute gem at a lock-in where I work.  Whilst everyone was drinking themselves into a stupor I was taken aback by what seemingly was one of my friends course textbooks but as it turns out, probably one of the most captivating books I ever set my wee blinkers on.

Simply named, 'Ghetto'  the book is divided into sections such as, Prison, Marriage and the most intense Mental Institutions and shows all aspects of ghetto life through photographs and interviews. 

Now I don't know a lot about cameras but the photos in the book are some of the most stark and real that I've ever seen.  It literally feels like your looking into the souls of these people, like they've been taken with some crazy ghost buster type contraption and at times it made me a little uneasy.  

Maybe its the fact that these characters come to life when set against their bleak backgrounds, hospital wards and prison walls are their canvas and what they have created is themselves, their existence, their personality.

All of the photos are accompanied with captions about the subject, questions are posed and the answers emulate the truth of the photographs, sometimes shocking but always thought-provoking, I laughed and at times blubbed my way from cover to cover.

Rafael, a patient in an asylum in Cuba was asked, 

"What are you scared of Rafael?"  

"I'm afraid of the outside." He replied. 

"Why?" 

"Because Rafael is there and I don't want to see him."

"But you are Rafael"

"Now you understand what I'm scared of..."

This book in simultaneously intense, heart-warming, thought provoking but above all an EPIC read.  Definitely one for the collection. Its by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin.