So long, friend
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MJR: Could you elaborate on the stories behind those photos?
Berner: The one where he’s on the bed and she’s on the phone was taken just a couple of months after I’d met him. They did exactly as had been asked. They had gotten a call from the hospital and I was in the office and they called immediately.
Jack was called saying that he would be the backup to this other gentleman and if the other person was not able to receive this liver because of his health or the size of his cavity that they’d have to prep both of them. It took five or six hours before he was released without getting the liver at all.
At this time, he was feeling really good and quite honestly, I felt that he and Deborah were greatly relieved that he didn’t get the liver at this point.
I felt there was a degree of great concern on both their parts as reflected in his eyes and in her tension on the phone.
Getting a liver isn’t what you’d call a joyful moment. The grave concern of facing this monumental surgery and possibly not surviving it is what I think is shown on his face and in her demeanor in the background.
He is lost in his own thoughts, completely.
MJR: And what about the one where Jack is in the hall? Was that before or after he’d gotten the liver?
Berner: That’s after he’s gotten the liver and he’s got a blood draw to see how he’s doing, and he’s not doing all that well.
Every week or so I would call to check on him just to see what was going on. I had just called him up that afternoon on his cell phone and he said he’d finished a blood draw and was headed home.
I said I would meet him there and maybe we’d go out for coffee. He often didn’t lock his front door, especially if he knew I was coming, because the living quarters were upstairs.
I opened the door and was really shocked to see him seated on the ground as he was: small figure, kind of vulnerable, looking weak and somewhat in pain. I just raised the camera and took a picture because it’s a very telling image about his situation.
On the second frame, he moves so that’s it, there’s really only one frame. Jack’s a really charmed guy and he knows how he wants to be portrayed.
He didn’t know exactly what the picture looked like but he knew what it was going to show, content wise.
So he gets up and that’s it, bang, one frame and we walked upstairs and talked about the many blood draws and procedures he was being subjected to all the time.
MJR: Did you ever feel like you were intruding?
Berner: No, I never did. With Jack, there were things that the access was really extremely good. Some days I’d go and pick him up and if he didn’t really feel well I’d take him to a nearby coffee shop that was a favorite of his and sometimes it was a picture that would run and sometimes not, but I felt it was important to keep the connection and it was good for his mental health. It got him up from just lying there all day.
I don’t know. I think the camera helps. I don’t find the camera to be a barrier. I find that if anything it intensifies the whole experience. It gives me a more intense connection to the story.
MJR: How would you say this assignment changed you as a photographer, if it has?
Berner: That’s a really hard-to- answer question. I don’t know how it’s changed me. It could have and I don’t even know how it has because it’s odd. I mean, when Jack died, I totally broke down, I lost it emotionally. I can’t remember that happening with other subjects or non-family members.
But it wasn’t as if I hadn’t been in near-death situations before. When it became clear that my father wasn’t going to recover from a brain aneurysm about 10 years ago, I started making pictures.
Nobody said not to because of course I was the son. I was shooting black and white and at one point it’s just my dad and the oxygen mask, his eyes are closed, he’s unconscious, but there’s a hand from the left and a hand from the right. One is my sister’s and the other is his girlfriend’s.
It’s a very strong, telling picture that I gave them later. But I wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable doing it. That’s what I do.