The history of photography in the black community [of Carbondale] was that white students would go in and spy on the black community. The whole association with a 35 mm camera was very threatening to the people who lived in that community because they associated it with the students. No one was brave enough to actually go in and confront those people, introduce themselves and learn about those people’s lives. For me, going in the year before with a 4 x 5 medium-format camera, I would have to ask people to sit down and I actually went into their houses and I got to meet people. The next year, 1982, I used a toy camera because I thought it was less threatening than a 35 mm camera. I took bar scenes too, and that made it even easier, to go into bars with a toy camera.
