A LIMITED EDITION OF 700 copies. Printed and bound in Hokkaido Japan.

The title of this book, I Give You Power, is a play on one of rapper Nas’s classic hip hop

songs that had a big impact on hip hop culture. The similarity in the title is intentional

because the song was one of the inspirations behind this project. Released in 1996,

Nas’s “I Gave You Power” is an allegorical narrative about urban street life told from

the perspective of a gun.

A shy person by nature, I chose the title I Give You Power also because the

camera was my passport into places where I previously would not have ventured.

It gave me the confidence to communicate with people who would not normally

start a conversation with me, people who became my subjects and literally gave

me carte blanche to photograph their lives. My camera made people see me as

someone they can trust, I suppose because artists are often viewed as liberal thinking

people who embrace social justice issues and who are supportive of the marginalized.

Photographers like Jim Goldberg, Larry Clark, Diane Arbus, Arlene Gottfried, and Nan

Goldin are all part of that tradition and inspired me when I started doing photography.

I Give You Power is the first installment of an urban trilogy. The other two planned

volumes will be very different from the works in this book, but they will continue the

theme of urban street life.

Rulx Thork

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