Picture of the Week #195 "Eight Million Stories" New York City NY 1970 Signed and Stamped

Forty-two years later and this image still haunts me. I made this when I was producing and directing a music video for the rock group "Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show". The song was called "Carry Me" and was about alcoholism. Not sure how to portray that I hid a camera in my coat and went to the Bowery, which in those days was where the addicted hung out. I've shown a couple of images from this series before. (see Pictures of the Week #7 & #68) I tried sneaking pictures but was caught fairly soon by two of the meanest looking guys you ever saw. They asked for a quarter. I gave it to them. They became my "guides" and walked me around so that I could get the pictures that I needed. Years later I turned these 35mm color transparencies Black and White and had a show titled "Holy Men Medicine Men Mad Men" which channeled me away from filmmaking and painting and allowed me to pursue my passion of taking pictures after a Vanity Fair editor had said; "Stephen Verona's work recalls the greatness of Steichen and Weegee with all of the passion of Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. A Must see!" I've never looked back except to my pictures.