Joshua Dixon stops to take a photo while walking down Congress Street in Portland. Dixon, from Chicago, was attacked by two pit bulls when he was 8-years-old and has undergone 59 surgeries to reconstruct his face.
Dixon and Erica Osorio look at images on the back of hiss Sony camera during a photo shoot at Maine College of Art on Sunday. Osorio, also a student at MECA, was modeling for Dixon for an art project he is working on. Dixon makes friends easily, both in the school and on the streets of Portland. “He has a brightness about him,” says Kate Greene, one of his teachers at MECA. “He is one of those people that has a magnetic personality."
Dixon watches a contact sheet develop in a tray in a print darkroom at MECA.
Dixon examines negatives he just processed in the darkroom at Maine College of Art for his Introduction to Black & White Photography class.
Dixon takes a photo of flowers in Portland's West End while walking around the city. Dixon became interested in art as a way to cope with long hospital stays and the mean comments from people about his appearance.
Dixon, from Chicago, examines processed negatives. He came to Maine this year to study at MECA after getting interested in art as therapy while recovering from his many surgeries.
Dixon gets his laptop out of its case in his dorm room. Dixon requested a single room because he has a nightly routine that he says can cause people discomfort. He changes the patch on his left eye, cleans his ears, which are prosthetics, and puts stints in his nose “to make sure I don’t suffocate," he says, "because I have like, a nice decent chance of something happening in the night if I don’t put them in.”
Dixon organizes prints and negatives before putting them back in his locker at Maine College of Art. Dixon is a freshman at MECA, studying both photography and digital design.
Dixon walks around Portland frequently, almost always with his camera, and the Eastern Prom has become one of his favorite places.
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