Jack Scoresby

Misconceptions.

Once when I was 17 I had a huge thing for this girl named Lauren Pritchard, and she was very positive on attending christian social events in high school and once asked me to come with her to her youth group on a Wednesday. I, being open-minded, accepted.

She came to my house to pick me up and when the front door opened there stood my 72 year old father glowering at here.

“What do you want?” He asked sternly.

“I’m here to pick up Jacob.” Lauren replied a bit hesitantly.

“You can’t have him.” My father retorted.

“But, he’s going with me to my youth group.” she said.

My father, eyeing her over his glasses conceeded. “Alright, come on in.”

And as Lauren walked past my dad, he gave her a playful smack right on the ass.

Lauren thought it was hilarious/adorable/charming.

I tell this story sometimes and while most women find it cute, some women get very upset. They find it chauvinistic, disgusting, and consider my father a dirty old man for it. (And not in the cute way either.)

They never believe me of course when I break it to them that they’re wrong. So wrong. Because had it been them in Lauren’s shoes they’d have reacted exactly as Lauren did. It’s not some misplaced sense of hero-worship I have for my dad either. It’s just the way he was. Everyone loved him. Everyone. Especially women. He was the most charismatic motherfucker I’ve ever seen. And also, probably the most depressed.

That’s another story though. One I’m not sure I’ll ever write.

A girl.

I once had a concussion. I got it while riding on the hood of my own car while a girl I knew who just got her license was driving it, and she popped a curb and I went tumbling off. I remember staggering to my feet, then falling back down, then going to the hospital and recovering my equilibrium after all the bright lights brought me to the ground a few times after that.

I still have vertigo to this day when it comes to bright lights. Makes being on stage and doing studio photography a challenge sometimes. Little known fact.

None of that is the story I want to tell you though. I’m telling you that to tell you this:

A night or so later I’m with a friend visiting some girls, and the music is making the back of my head feel like an earthquake, so I elect to leave him in the apartment whilst I go lay down in the backseat of his car at 11:00 or so at night.

One of the girls, we’ll call her Ashley, and I had been flirting a lot over the past month or so. She had a girlfriend she was living with, and had been with her for some time, but evidently I was interesting to her and well, she was gorgeous and all punk rock and a few years older than me and smart and funny and yeah…

So she comes out to check on me, and we sit in my friend’s car in the parking lot of this apartment complex at midnight and we kiss, and she was an amazing kisser. And some things lead to others. My tounge ends up playing with her nipple piercing, her mouth ends up around my cock, and things progress playfully. Not with any serious lustful intent. I was still in pain and we were exploring because really, neither of us knew what this was. She had until that point given up on men and I was still inexperienced and still not sure this was really happening. She even said herself she couldn’t believe she was doing this.

We talked about what we liked and what we’d done. She showed me her pussy and her clit and we discussed oral, and to this day I regret the pounding headache that didn’t let me go any further or do any more than what we did. There were opportunities later, but honestly I was scared. I was never in love with her, but I didn’t want this to stop, and I worried that it might. So we never did, and I regret it sometimes.

We went back into the apartment for a while and soon after we left. She had left her bra in the car and told me later I could keep it. I’m not sure whatever happened to it.

That night is one of the more pleasurable and memorable moments of my life.

Look at this.

I’m not here to tell you anything.

I don’t care what my photos say to you. It makes little difference to me if you adore them or despise them. I’m not trying to convey any meaning, state any purpose, or trigger a specific response. I don’t want to change society. I don’t want to change the world. I don’t want to change your mind. These things don’t really matter to me.

As an artist, I make waves. That’s it. What they crash into is out of my hands, out of my control, and outside my realm of interest. What my photos say or mean is up to you and what you do with that information is also your responsibility. My job is not to say “Think about this.” My job is to say “Look at this.”

That’s all I want. I want you to look. Whatever happens after that isn’t anything I’ve done. It’s your mind, your imagination, and your voice from then on out. I just make a photo. You make everything else. I don’t choose your reaction or your next chain of thought. That’s your job, whenever you look.

So please, regardless of what happens when you do your job, if it’s good or bad or inspiring or offensive, take responsibility for it. Artists don’t change anything. Audiences do.