J E S S I CA D I M M O C K add i cti o n
JESSICA DIMMOCK: I always had an interest in pho-
I was walking around with my camera on a way to a
tography. My dad ran the printing press of the The New
friend’s dinner party. A man approached me wanting
York Times, all of my life in my parent’s apartment in NY.
to know if I was a photo student, and if I wanted to
He’s a terrible photographer; I don’t even know how
photograph him. He kind of made it clear that other art
we’re from the same gene pool. He’s just horrible at it,
students had photographed him, and he also made it
but I grew up in this home where we always talked about
clear he was a cocaine dealer, and that if I wanted to fol-
how the image looked on the page, because that’s what
low him around I could. So I said yes, and followed him
my dad did. He got me a camera when I was young, I set
for just three nights, which in the scope of the project is
up a dark room in the bathroom in our two-bedroom-
kind of nothing. I went to a bunch of places with him, I
one-bathroom apartment when I was a kid. I always re-
went to parties, to apartments where he sold, and tele-
ally loved taking pictures, it just never occurred to me
phone booths and stuff like that, and the very last place
that I could do it. It seemed like something other people
he ever took me was the apartment where the 9th Floor
got to do. It didn’t occur to me until I’d been teaching in
takes place. He said, “This is Jessica, my photographer”,
public school for a few years, and I wasn’t picking up my
because I came in with him, they were very open with
camera at all, and I missed it. It made me feel insecure.
me that first evening. They were like, “Oh you can take
Part of the reason for being a teacher was that I’d have
some pictures of us too”.
all this free time and I would make these projects, and I
He then was arrested, probably because he was walking
didn’t pick up the camera once and it was eating away
up to strangers telling them he was a cocaine dealer, but
at me. Then I met this guy in a coffee shop, he’s a great
from that initial connection, I was able to reestablish a
friend to me to this day, who had gone to SPA. I met him
little bit of a connection. It took me a while but I was able
while grading papers and he said; “You should go to art
to find that again.
school, if this is what you want to do, you can do it.” That shifted everything.
ANDREA: So, after the first night, you left, when you came back the second time, when you rang the buzzer
ANDREA BLANCH: Do you set up any of your shots or
what did you say?
is it spontaneous? JESSICA: I kind of assumed that Jim, the man from the JESSICA: No, its all spontaneous. Unless its a portrait,
street, would take me back there again. I’d never thought
but I’m really best with an environmental portrait any-
he would go to jail, I had no idea that would be the scenar-
way. I’m really my best when someone has me in their
io. So, I didn’t know how to get in touch with these guys,
home and then I take a picture of them there. I’m a better
and I knew that the apartment that I’d seen was some-
observer than anything else.
thing really unique and crazy and special, and I didn’t know how to get back there. So I hovered around Union
ANDREA: You mentioned in an interview for Pho-
Square, because I had heard that night in talking to them
toShelter that you stumbled upon your subjects for “The
that they hung out there, and after a month I saw one of
9th Floor”. How exactly did that happen?
them and I was like “I have been looking for you”. I basically said, I have all these pictures that I took that night
JESSICA: I was studying photography at ICP, and
and I’d love to give them to you, and could I come by
Portrait by Jessica Dimmock / VII. All images courtesy Jessica Dimmock
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