9 months after the twin towers fell my family moved from the dry deserts of Tucson, Arizona to the gum speckled pavement of Brooklyn, New York. A week before we left Tucson I asked my mom to cut off my rat’s tail—I was going to be a city kid.


But from the drop I felt like an outsider, that I had no roll, no reason to be there—I should just fuck off. Then one summer I discovered that with a camera in my hand I had an excuse to exist. It was not until much later in life that I realized I hadn't needed one in the first place. 


This collection of images were taken in my late teens and early twenties. I am still in touch with a few of the friends pictured here but several are now lost to me—alcohol, drugs, mental illness and death—or simply distanced though life. Some were never really friends in the first place. And others were only ever fleeting faces.


This project continues to morph as I dig through my archive of dusty, forgotten negatives—revealing the fragility of youth, and memory.

We Are Making Plans

Cheney Orr © All rights reserved.
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