Evidence of My Existence | Jim Lo Scalzo

Evidence of My Existence | Jim Lo Scalzo | Right On the Money

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Evidence of My Exi...

	Evidence of My Existence Jim Lo Scalzo Ohio University Press, 2007 - 312 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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From a leper colony in India to an American research station on the
Antarctic Peninsula, from the back rooms of the White House to the
battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, Evidence of My Existence tells
a unique and riveting story of seventeen years spent racing from one photo
assignment to the next. It is also a story of photojournalism and the
consequences of obsessive wanderlust.
When the book opens, Jim Lo Scalzo is a blur to his wife, her remarkable tolerance
wearing thin. She is heading to the hospital with her second miscarriage,
and Jim is heading to Baghdad to cover the American invasion of Iraq. He
hates himself for this?for not giving her a child, for deserting her when she so
obviously needs him, for being consumed by his job?but how to stop moving?
Sure, there have been some tough trips. He?s been spit on by Mennonites
in Missouri, by heroin addicts in Pakistan, and by the KKK in South Carolina.
He?s contracted hepatitis on the Navajo Nation, endured two bouts of amoebic
dysentery in India and Burma and four cases of giardia in Nepal, Peru, Afghanistan,
and Cuba. He?s been shot with rubber bullets in Seattle, knocked to
the ground by a water cannon in Quebec, and sprayed with more teargas than
he cares to recall. But photojournalism is his career, and travel is his compulsive
craving.
We follow Lo Scalzo through the maze of airports and crowds and countries as
he chases the career he has always wanted, struggles with his family problems,
and reveals the pleasures of a life singularly focused. For him, as for so many
photojournalists, it is always about the going.

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Very enjoyable!

An amazing story of his true experiences, very interesting. There were laugh out loud moments, sad moments, moments of disbelief. A very well written story.

Right On the Money

As someone who has the advantage of knowing both Author and many of the other folks mentioned in his book, I have to say that he has done a real service to the world of photojournalism. We all know we live wacky lives in a wacky world, and spend much of our time trying to make relatively smooth interactions with family, friends and loved ones who are of the 'normal world.' It is never easy, as the attraction to the work is very nearly a primal force, and it often seems to take precedence in our lives in ways which actual normal people might find either weird, or like Mr. Ford says in his review, insensative. Yet those people who pursue the world of photography and journalism do it not strictly for the ego blast involved, though one's ego is at stake every time you press the shutter: there is a feeling which we all share about the documenting of history which remains the driving force. Mr. LoScalzo absolutely hits it on the head, in his descriptions of his own personal discovery of the power of that photographic image, as well as the inherent pitfalls which photojournalists face in trying maintain a sense of normalcy in their lives. (This is no less true for women photographers than for men, and perhaps even greater because of societal expectations.) Yet the pure enjoyment of the chase for the images, and the battles to get them used in print is wonderfully captured, as is his knack of sharing the sense of quirky individualism in the colleagues in his stories. As someone who for years felt many of the same emotions he wonderfully describes in his book, I salute him for sharing with the rest of the world a little bit of what our world is really like. Highly recommended, even if you don't know a single photographer!

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Candor, humor and humanity, with a dash of photojournalism on the side...

Evidence of my Existence is a remarkable surprise--Lo Scalzo's writing is clear, sharp and perceptive; his story funny, on point and spirited; his life a charming mix of low frustration, high adventure and goofy, self-induced f*ck ups. To disagree with another reviewer, Lo Scalzo doesn't demonstrate arrogance in his life or his book so much as he reveals things about himself, his work and his motivations that most authors would conceal--to their own benefit of course, and their readers' detriment.

"Evidence" isn't just a photography book--it's a travel book, a book about restlessness and adventure, and most of all about the kind of coming of age that happens only to those who spend most of their life refusing to grow up.

As a writer who worked with Lo Scalzo once or twice, you could expect me to be biased--and I am. I never thought the miserable little b*stard could write like this! That he can is frustrating beyond belief--I sure can't make photos like he can--but the results are good enough, entertaining enough and true enough that I'll forgive him the trespass, and recommend his book the best and truest way I know how: with jealousy. I'm pretty sure I'm relieved I didn't live Jim's life, but I sure wish I'd written his book.

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Mixed feelings

Lo Scalzo starts by admitting his arrogance and then spends the rest of the book providing supporting evidence. Don't get me wrong; I liked the book. His recollections of spending time among Mennonites in Missouri and the Navajo in Arizona are amazing and instructive. He's got a bottomless well of fascinating stories about being an adventurous, wanderlusting photojournalist. But every book needs a central theme to hold it together. Here, it's how much he neglects his wife (who is at best a peripheral character). Case in point: after ruining a family vacation by lugging his work along, he goes on to leave his wife for Iraq the day after her second miscarriage. In the end, he repents and goes home to his wife. They have a child and everyone is happy. But here's the kicker: what drives him to repent and go home is not a sudden awareness of how much of a jerk he's been. It's the realization that while he may be a good photojournalist, he'll never be a legendary photojournalist. I'd probably feel a lot different about this book if the author could have just found it within himself to say, "I wish I hadn't treated my wife so poorly."

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