When is innocence lost?

Mt. Clemens Friends, photo by Joseph Crachiola Photography

Photographer Asks: Recognize Anyone in Mt. Clemens Photo From ’73 That’s Going Viral? from Deadline Detroit says:

Former Detroit-area photographer Joseph Crachiola is thinking about race relations more than usual, a common reaction to the Trayvon Martin case verdict.

The musing led him to share personal reflections on Facebook with a photo he snapped July 31, 1973 for The Macomb Daily. It shows five youngsters, three black and two white, posing playfully after a rain shower in Mt. Clemens – a moment of childhood innocence that moved Crachiola 40 years ago and still does.

He’s not alone. Though Crachiola has only 411 followers on the business page where he displayed it Sunday with a 160-word post, he tells Deadline Detroit the black-and-white image has been viewed nearly 20,000 times by Monday afternoon. It has more than 600 “likes,” was shared 260 times and has about five dozen comments.

On the Facebook photo – now up over 50,000 views, 4000 likes, 2000 shares with a bunch of great comments – he wrote:

I shot this photograph forty years ago in Mt. Clemens, Michigan – July 31, 1973 – while working for a suburban Detroit newspaper. It was a seemingly insignificant moment. I was walking down a side street and saw some children playing. They saw me and said, “Hey mister, take our picture!” The pose was completely spontaneous. I shot several frames and moved on. The picture ran somewhere inside the paper and was probably forgotten about, but for me it still stands as one of my most meaningful pictures.

It makes me wonder. When is innocence lost? At what point do we begin to mistrust one another? When do we begin to judge one another based on gender or race? I have always wondered what happened to these children. I wonder if they are still friends. In light of the current state of affairs in this country I can’t help but wonder if we couldn’t all learn something from them.

I bet we could! If you have any tips or knowledge as to who is in the pic or thoughts about the photo, share them with Joseph on Facebook and see more of Joseph’s work on his Facebook page.

More portraits on Michigan in Pictures.