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‘Hector believed that by telling his story
he could help people, especially children,
change their lives and not follow his path.
He wanted people to truly learn from his
lifelong struggle with obesity in the hope
they might have a better life. His wider
family supported him in that mission and
didn’t need any convincing when I offered
to document his life.’K
rantz, an only child with a close-
knit family, grew up in Tallahassee,
Florida, listening to her grandmother
tell stories of growing up poor in
New York. ‘My great-grandparents were
immigrants, raising their family in the
impoverished neighbourhoods of Brooklyn
nearly a century ago. My grandmother, who’s
97 now, would sometimes cry when she
shared memories of her family’s financial
struggles. It was heartbreaking to me, even
as a child, to hear how much they suffered.
My father and his cousins tell those same
stories. I think I became very aware of the
suffering of others because of it. Maybe that’s
why I’ve chosen to document other people’slives – to tell the stories of their best and
worst moments, and everything in between.’
As a child Krantz would shoot photos
using a point and shoot camera to recordmemories – her friends, her fellow Girl Scouts,
her cousins, her Barbie van. ‘It’s funny when
I think back, I actually wrote captions in a
picture album for the photos of me and my
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