$2 Portrait Project: Sean

A few nice dual diagnosis images I found:

Portrait Project: Sean

Image by Troy Holden
You can read more about my Portrait Project here.

A few months back, I was out shooting with Travis Jensen and Stuart Dixon in the Financial District. As we were headed back towards Market Street, we ran into Sean. Sean asked me for a couple of bucks so I told him about my project and he agreed to pose.

36-year old Sean was originally from Spokane Washington and had been in San Francisco for about 21 years. When he first moved here he was a bike messenger for Arrow and Specialty, but was fired from both due to lying about his dual diagnosis of depression and HIV. At one point in our conversation, he summed up his troubled existence is "waiting for his turn to die."

Sean asked me what kind of music I liked and I told him Bay Raps, Classic Rock, and "Old Man Jazz.." He asked what "Old Man Jazz" was and I told him the masters: Coltrane, Davis, Brubek, etc. He agreed that "Old Man Jazz" was a good term and was glad I didn’t say Kenny G.

Next, Sean told me he hadn’t eaten anything for almost 72 hours and the pain in his stomach was overwhelming. As he grabbed the from my hand, he apologized for cutting the conversation short and headed towards the Mc Donalds down the street.

I thanked Sean fro his time, and with that I continued towards Market Street with Travis and Stuart.

You can see the collective whole of Portraits from around the world here.