By Kathy Brown GILLETTE NEWS-RECORD
GILLETTE,
Wyo. (AP) – Standing amid a green landscape on the Pine Ridge Reservation is a
weary Ogallala Lakota Sioux coming to grips with her need to move away from her
home, her life as she has always known it.
Taking her
photograph that day was a 14-year Gillette resident, Jeffrey “JP” Caffee, who
chooses to train his camera on the nearly invisible people in our society. The
soon-to-be 40-year-old self-trained photographer refers to them as the “have-nots.”
They’re the homeless, the marginalized, the victims, the poor, the addicted,
the mentally ill, the abused, the drug-addled, the veterans and the otherwise
lost. They share beauty and ugliness at the same time and he captures their
anger, hurt and humor.
Caffee has
found his mission, his purpose. He’s found beauty in the people occupying those
haunting landscapes, the wild streets. They are easily forgotten and overlooked
by many, yet he said he has chosen instead to “shine a light” on their pain,
their stories, their lives. That’s how he has found his own salvation.
