Gun Land: Chicago’s South Side by Justin Maxon

2 minute read

In February, Justin Maxon, a photographer and Northern California native, spent several days and nights on Chicago’s South Side for TIME, trying to make fresh images that convey the sadly familiar fact of gun violence in the great but troubled city.

There is a fire, an intensity, to Maxon’s work that may partly be the end result of a journalist in his 20s seeing a story with fresh eyes. But even more, it is a measure of his honest desire to go past the surface of a picture to the complicated humanity that lies at the core of all conflict. These are real people, and left behind are real survivors wrestling with grief, guilt, and anger.

“What I witnessed and gathered from the stories of people living in the South Side is that their community is about survival,” Maxon tells TIME. “With that dynamic comes fight. Violence is built into the structure of survival.”

Maxon questioned how to best represent the complex issues facing the community, revealing just how critical it is to show the nuances when covering an environment saddled by intense transformation. Too often, reports of urban violence begin and end with data: name, age, street address — and how many murders does that make for this year? Maxon’s pictures are the opposite, pulling viewers from the grim facts toward the search for meaning.

“These are communities of strength and hope,” Maxon says. “Where people come together to grieve but to also encourage and inspire. I obviously had to illustrate the story of violence, but I was most interested in searching for how the community was trying to critically engage with the issue in an adaptive and positive way.”

Click here to read editor-at-large David Von Drehle’s full magazine story on Chicago and Mayor Rahm Emanuel available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

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Justin Maxon is a Northern California native whose recent work When the Spirit Moves (featured on LightBox June 10, 2011) documents Chester, Pennsylvania—a community facing upwards of 300 unsolved murder cases since the mid-nineties.

David Von Drehle is an editor-at-large for TIME, where he has covered politics, breaking news and the Supreme Court since 2007. He is the author of four books, including Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year, published in 2012, and Triangle: The Fire That Changed America

Friends of Deshaun Williams attend his funeral at the Monument of Faith Church in Chicago. Williams was killed in a shooting outside an Englewood nightclub the evening of February 22, 2013 at the age of 25. He was a graduate of the University of Houston, where he played basketball.Justin Maxon for TIME
Friends of Deshaun Williams attend his funeral at the Monument of Faith Church in Chicago. Williams was killed in a shooting outside an Englewood nightclub the evening of February 22, 2013 at the age of 25. He was a graduate of the University of Houston where he played basketball.Justin Maxon for TIME
A young girl and her father appear in a window in Englewood.Justin Maxon for TIME
A worn statue of President Lincoln appears on a street corner in Englewood.Justin Maxon for TIME
A man poses for a portrait with his two pit bulls in Englewood. Justin Maxon for TIME
A young girl plays in the back yard of a home in Chicago's South Side.Justin Maxon for TIME
A young child plays in a puddle in Englewood. Justin Maxon for TIME
A member of Ceasefire, a violence-interruption NGO, comforts Leon Cunningham, 19, just moments before his foot will be amputated. Cunningham was shot four separate times: in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. The 2010 shooting paralyzed him below the waist. Each shooting was within a block or two of his family’s home in south Chicago. Justin Maxon for TIME
Ondelee Perteet, 18, was paralyzed from the neck down in 2009 when a bullet passed through his jaw and injured his spine. Doctors told them that he would never walk again. He has slowly and painfully regained some movement.Justin Maxon for TIME
Pamela Wright and Greg Young are the mother and stepfather of Tyrone “Scoot” Lawson, who was killed after a high school basketball game in Roseland on January 16, 2013.Justin Maxon for TIME
Teenagers from the area paint murals at the storefront offices of Imagine Englewood If, a long-standing grassroots community group run by Jean Carter Hill.Justin Maxon for TIME
Mayor Rahm Emanuel shakes hands with people at the Peace Basketball Tournament Championship at St. Sabina Academy.Justin Maxon for TIME
Englewood police gather at a gang hotspot during an outdoor roll call to discuss ongoing violence in the area.Justin Maxon for TIME
An abandoned house in Englewood.Justin Maxon for TIME
A cross on the South Side of Chicago reads "Stop Shooting."Justin Maxon for TIME

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