The Bored Are Driven To Extremes

In a small city, lonely people are often confronted
with the stark contrast between their own seemingly
drab lives, and the quick-cut, star-studded,
Technicolor dream that 100+ channels of
television provides. Self-loathing is often a common
result. I grew up in a city so bored that when a
violent murder was committed, dozens of teenagers
came from the woodwork to implicate themselves, or to
place themselves at the scene of the crime. They were
obviously lying, but saw the investigation as an
opportunity for a little excitement, regardless of the
risk to their personal freedom or reputation.
My models usually come from a very random selection
of strangers who respond to my recruiting.
In “The Bored Are Driven To Extremes” the scars on
the model’s ankles (and wrists) are very real. She
claimed that the scars were self-inflicted during
a recent period in her life when she was living in a small
town in northern Michigan, and feeling abandoned.
The self-mutilation was her way of coping with this
hopelessness. Some elements of her tale are questionable,
but for the most part, the story rang true. We spent
quite a while exploring this taboo, and this image
resulted.