Sleep

Sleep, photographs of people sleeping in public places in many countries, was first published in book form in a limited edition in 1977.

After its publication, during a summer’s stay in the McArthur Park section of Los Angeles, I photographed many more sleepers. So many it seemed to me that soon-to-be sleepers were falling prostrate before me just for my benefit, as if I’d been given the gift of a subject I was only beginning to explore.

In the years following that summer in Los Angeles, as I traveled around America photographing, I saw few sleepers. Where had they gone? Had a more dangerous atmosphere in urban areas in America or a more diligent surveillance of corporate plazas effaced the favorable climate, the acceptability of sleeping in public places? Or had I moved on to other subjects, leaving the sleepers behind? Had they disappeared or was I no longer seeing them?

The perception and pursuit of a subject is intertwined with its disappearance. It is unlikely that sleeping in public places disappeared, only that, in the mysterious circumstances of recording the world, the photographer turned to look at something else.