Nursing Home Series, 1968

Donald Greenhaus: “Without the Fear, Without the Tears”

The first day I walked into the nursing home and the doors closed behind me I felt as if I were never going to get out of this place. I could barely breathe much less bring myself to take these pictures. I walked past this old man and he said,”lt’s all right”- I said,”Excuse me” and he said “lt’s all right, I spoke to your father and he said it’s all right.” I looked at him with astonishment, my father died in 1951 and now it was 1968 – and he spoke with my father? “Yes,” he said,”I spoke to Ben and he said it’s all right.” Ben is my father’s name.

I ran home in a daze and it took me about a week to understand that I had been given permission to shoot these pictures.

I wanted these photographs to speak about the human condition. I saw them not as photographs but as old people. I intentionally did not fix or wash these prints long enough, so they would grow old like the people in the photographs.

Each print has it’s own life. As the surface of the print grows old, the colors change and the image will eventually disappear.

What remains is the nobility of the human spirit.

Donald Greenhaus

Written for “Without the Fear, Without the Tears” – Donald Greenhaus/Eli Reed

Seventh & Second Photo Gallery, Middle Collegiate Church, NYC October1994

Eli Reed

Donald and I have known each other since approximately late 1969 or early 1970. Neither one of us has aged in any conventional sense in my view. We are still the same chronological age in spirit as we were in 1970 and we are still keeping the faith while individually searching for the essence of understanding through our respective works in progress. I am sure the search will go on until we die because it is our way.

Donald and I first met on a West Greenwich Village street waiting for a bus. That bus ride ended with Donald showing me his nursing home photographic essay. I reached for it in the way a drowning man reaches for the water’s surface glimmering in the light. That meeting helped point me onto a road not imagined by either Donald or myself. We have tried our best to take the humane path and we know that it was important to take that walk.

I try to look at Donald’s and my own photographs from a distance in my mind’s eye and I think of hope and glory. I dream of respect and understanding. I see innocence and wonder in God’s eyes. And when I do that, I truly believe that these are all good things.

Eli Reed

Written for “Without the Fear, Without the Tears” – Donald Greenhaus/Eli Reed Seventh & Second Photo Gallery, Middle Collegiate Church, NYC October 1994

About Eli Reed

Eli Reed is a Clinical Professor, Photojournalist Department, University of Texas, Austin. Since 1983, he has been an international photojournalist with Magnum Photos. Mr. Reed is a published author, film director, documentarian, and member of the Society of Motion Picture Still Photographers (SMPSP).