Suzanne Crying, NYC

Nan Goldin has said: "To photograph from your own life has these components of risk and uncontrollable possibilities and subtext that you can't impose upon photos; they come from experience." For thirty-five years, it has been her obsession to record her world, capitalizing on photography's potential for immediacy, emotion, and anecdote. Goldin's pictures, however, present subjects living outside or against the conventional family life shown in typical snapshots. These photographs also bear witness to moments of utmost intimacy—lovemaking, violence, addiction, hospitalization—and to the rollercoaster of accompanying emotions. Suzanne, Crying, NYC is emblematic of her approach, and its power is all the more remarkable if we contemplate when, if ever, someone took our photograph while we cried.