Despite endless campaigns to raise awareness and money for its victims, domestic violence still kills. In fact, between 2001 and 2012, more American women were murdered by a partner than American troops were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.Three women are murdered every day by a current or former male partner. A shocking 38,028,000 women have experienced physical intimate partner violence in their lifetimes. These acts of extreme violence usually happen in private, but photographer Sara Naomi Lewkowicz is looking to change all that.
Lewkowicz has spent the last few years documenting Maggie, a woman from southeastern Ohio who’s suffered personally with domestic abuse at the hands of her ex-boyfriend Shane. In fact, Lewkowicz and her camera captured a moment of abuse that she eventually published in Time Magazine as a photo series entitled Photographer as Witness: A Portrait of Domestic Violence.During the time of the photo series, Maggie had two children, two-year-old Memphis, and four-year-old Kayden. Maggie had separated from their father several months before beginning her relationship with Shane, while he was still in prison. Just one month into their relationship, Shane got Maggie’s name tattooed on his neck.
After documenting the family for several months, Lewkowicz happened to be in the house during an argument between Shane and Maggie that eventually escalated into physical assault. The photos are shocking, and caution is advised to viewers who may have witnessed domestic abuse in the past.The photo series’ haunting captions reveal the spark that lit Shane’s anger: “After a night out at a local bar, Maggie left after becoming jealous of when another woman flirted with Shane. Upon arriving home, Shane flew into a rage, angry that Maggie had ‘abandoned him’ at the bar and then drove home to his friend, whose house they were staying at for the week. Maggie told him to get out of the house, that he was too angry and that he would wake the children.”
Shane’s anger began to grow. Lewkowicz’s caption explains: “He screamed that Maggie had betrayed him, at one point accusing his friend of trying to pursue her sexually. At one point, Shane picked Maggie up and flung her back into the kitchen as she tried to run out of the room.”
Lewkowicz continues: “As the fight continued to rage, Shane told Maggie that she could choose between getting beaten in the kitchen, or going with him to the basement so they could talk privately. When Maggie refused, Shane began grabbing her by the face and neck, choking her. ‘You can either get beat up here, or we can go talk alone,’ he said. ‘Your choice.’”“As Shane and Maggie continued to fight, Memphis ran into the room and refused to leave Maggie’s side. She witnessed the majority of the assault on her mother. As the two fought, Memphis began to scream and stamp her feet.”
In perhaps the most upsetting photo of the set, Memphis then wedged herself between Shane and her mother in an attempt to stop the fight. At some point, the toddler had stopped crying and began trying to calm her mother.
Shane was eventually arrested after police investigated the bruises on Maggie’s neck. According to Lewkowicz, one of the police officers told Maggie: “You know they never stop. They usually stop when they kill you.”
Once the photos were made public online, Lewkowicz was judged by many online commentators for not intervening sooner. The photographer has since responded to such criticism by saying:“The incident raised a number of ethical questions. I’ve been castigated by a number of anonymous internet commenters who have said that I should have somehow physically intervened between the two. Their criticism counters what actual law enforcement officers have told me — that physically intervening would have likely only made the situation worse, endangering me, and further endangering Maggie.”The photo series won Lewkowicz the 2013 Ville de Perpignan Rémi Ochlik Award, and went on to win the L’Iris d’Or Award in 2014. Maggie is now living with her childrens’ father in Alaska.