Caine Rose: Chronicle and Commentary

My Mother Is Dying My mother is dying. Not the woman that gave birth to me— she left the Earth many years ago. But the woman that made me the man I am today. The woman that never bore her own flesh to carry on her family's name. The woman that fell in love with my dad and saw me as his perfect son. My mother is dying and it seemed to come out of nowhere. She hasn't been well for quite some time, but it got real really quick. I rescued her from a place where she was wasting away, tried to revive her and surround her with all the things she loved. Maybe it was a little too late because now she is dying. But at least she is home, surrounded by the ones that love her the most. She made me the man I am today and while I am far from perfect, I am her only son. She loves me till her last breath. I plan to be by her side when that happens because she never left my side, no matter how awful I was, for my entire life. I owe her so much and there's not enough time to repay. But I can ...

  The Follower Fallacy: What Happened When I Investigated Instagram Success When 100,000 Followers Isn't Enough Gina Black built an empire on Instagram. Over 100,000 followers. A thriving small business. Years of work transformed into a genuine online presence that supported her livelihood. Then one day, without warning, without explanation, without appeal—it all disappeared. "I've been on IG since 2013 and my first account was built to over 100k @blackcrystalcoven," Gina tells me. "At some point the algorithm changed and my once thriving account and small business was left with hardly any reach. It was heartbreaking to be very honest." One hundred thousand followers. Gone. Not deleted, not banned—worse. Instagram simply stopped showing her content to the audience she'd spent years building. The account still existed. The followers were still there. But the algorithm had decided she no longer mattered. I've been photographing cemeteries for fort...

  The Beginning I've been on IG, as a lot of us call it, since 2010. Right from the start. When I got my first iPhone. My then-wife was a performer and used it to promote her work along with all the other relevant social media platforms at the time. It was just a novelty to me. I didn't even own a real camera, just a cell phone. I had been without pro gear for a few years after selling everything in 2007 while still in the military. My son convinced me that the iPhone had the best camera at the time and the integration into the iOS ecosystem was the most attractive feature. I was all in. I got the iPhone 4 and soon after an iPad 1. Not long after, I had a MacBook Air. I drank the Steve Jobs Kool-Aid in one gulp. No regrets. I quickly found that iPhone photography was a legit endeavor and had no shame in being a once-pro photographer who didn't own an actual camera and instead shot everything from a phone. It took a while before I graduated from snapshots of my dogs and c...

  The Message I woke up this morning to a message from my uncle telling me that my aunt had passed away at 2:30 in the morning. That was about five hours prior to me somewhat consciously entering into a new day—those first moments when you're not quite awake, not quite asleep, checking your phone before your eyes have fully adjusted to the light. The words on the screen didn't make sense at first. Then they did. Then I wished they didn't. I had known for less than two weeks that my aunt had cancer of the liver and that it had spread incredibly fast. The kind of fast that doesn't give you time to prepare, to say everything you need to say, to reconcile yourself to what's coming. One day she was there, the next she was diagnosed, and now she's gone. Cancer doesn't care about timelines or goodbyes or the things left unsaid. She had taken care of my stepmother for the past several years. My father died in 2018, and it was incredibly hard on my stepmother, Jo...

Fool's Gold and Crimson Tears The leaves crunch beneath my boots as I walk through Homewood Cemetery in Pittsburgh on a cool, crisp late November morning. It's around 9:30 AM, and the sacred ground is decorated like nature's potpourri—fool's gold and crimson tears scattered across graves that hold some of America's mightiest names. We're fresh from rain the night before. The dampness fills the air, clinging to everything—the weathered monuments, the elaborate mausoleums, the modest headstones that stretch across rolling hills in every direction. The birds are chirping their morning songs. Deer meander gracefully between gravestones, unbothered by my presence. Just moments ago, a flock of wild turkeys crossed my path, their prehistoric silhouettes moving with surprising dignity through this city of the dead. I'm reminded, walking through this hallowed ground, that I was here almost exactly one year ago to the day. Perhaps coincidence. Perhaps fate. But here I...

  Two Classes of Truth-Seekers When I worked as a freelance photojournalist from the late 1990s to around 2006, I met many other "journos" of all stripes—from the fancy Wall Street Journal and Esquire magazine types to grassroots activist writers more akin to myself. The fancy journos were easy to spot a mile away. They stayed in fancy hotels with their cameras that cost more than the car I drove, tapping away on the latest and greatest MacBooks, being ferried around in chauffeured G-Wagons to their expensive hotel suites. I rubbed elbows with a bunch of them, and invariably, they almost always looked down on me. I never had the best cameras or fastest laptops. I didn't have an expense account. I never ordered room service. I bought my own plane tickets and sat in economy class while they sipped champagne in business class, discussing their next assignment over complimentary meals I couldn't afford. Still, I never thought my poverty was a sign of righteousness eit...