Tom Stone
By: Aline Smithson
Tom Stone is not afraid to look at difficult subjects straight in the face. The opening image on his website is a testament to the that fact.
Tom Stone, Beavis: Young Homeless Man Beavis, San Francisco, August 2006, silver gelatin print
Tom was born outside Mexico City, and spent most of his childhood with his mother communally in Los Angeles' famed Source Family; and after its dispersion, in various nomadic settings in Hawaii and California. A graduate of Harvard University with a degree in Computer Science, he worked in Silicon Valley for a number of years in investment banking and in the technology industry.
He is a documentary photographer known for his portraits of people living along the edges of society. His photography shares perspective with the work of Dorothea Lange, Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus and Sebastião Salgado.
His upcoming exhibition at the DNJ Gallery in Los Angeles opens with a sneak preview on November 6-9th. (Immediately following will be an exhibition by William Eggleston running through January 29th.)
I photograph people who skirt the edges of things; people whose connection to the broader flow is murky or obscured. Mistaken as less or different than they are; they aren’t really seen and don’t really belong. That is everyone sometimes, but for some it is more often. I try to establish a line for a moment. I hope to connect and through this I see the most beautiful and heartbreaking things. To my thinking, the original human trauma is our separation. We are too close not to need each other and too far to trust each other.
Click here to read the full statement and view additional images by Tom Stone.
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