Innocent Victims

Hello

I've been lurking on photo.net for awhile. I finally purchased a

scanner and dug this negative out of the archives. I never had a

forum to show this until now. This goes back about 20 years.... But

you couldn't tell. I could see this scene in every city on any given

day.

 

The more things change, the more they stay the same.<div></div>

I agree. I was at Stern Grove in San Francisco today to check out the site for a wedding shoot Sunday (with Easter eggs!) and coming out the drive, on the corner of Sloat and 19th Ave, there was a homeless man sleeping on a small patch of grass, wearing a stars and stripes bandana on his head. I thought I might snap his photo, but didn't want to invade his privacy, so decided against it. There were homeless people in biblical times and far beyond that. When will we learn to care for each other?

Hello Gary, nice to see you posting in the Street/Doc Forum. Look forward to seeing more of your work.

Todd Frederick Photo.net Hero Photo.net Patron, apr 07, 2004; 09:19

 

>When will we learn to care for each other?

 

Good question Todd, good question.

It's a terrible indictment of so-called 'developed' countries that we seem incapable of even housing people in a civilised manner.

Gary, this is a brilliant shot. I'll say why later. Have to run.

another cliched 'homeless' juxtaposition shot...well well...we all have to get that out of our system at some point i spose...

I'm with Grant on this one. Let's make a pledge that we will resist the temptation to sneak up on sleeping winos and editorialize them, shall we?

How'd you spray that on the wall without him waking up?

"I'm with Grant on this one. Let's make a pledge that we will resist the temptation to sneak up on sleeping winos and editorialize them, shall we?"

 

And that, my friend, is why we will see this scene in another 20 years.

Let's just ignore society's shame. Shall we.

Aha -- another "political" thread. ;-)

 

These photos are clichés. But then, many other photos are clichés, too, such as girl-in-the-city, man-on-the-subway, butt-shot-with-Leica, and so on. So, why don't we make a solemn pact to stop shooting all these things?

I want to know just what the people who don't like these pictures do to help change the situation they record.

You mean like painters do? Sculptors? Journalists?

I somehow doubt that being a photographer dictates being a social activist. More to the point, photography dictated by activism or political desires typically stinks. Example 1: 70 years of Soviet agitprop. Example 2: pictures like this.

 

If you really wanted to make a "point" you should gave taken this picture in Kodachrome, gotten so close the viewer could smell the man's breath. You would have found a detail that could hold the viewer's attention, make him feel something. Instead you stood 20 feet away and snapped a picture of a guy sleeping just to juxtapose the sign to send some sort of irony-laden message that only a sheltered, suburban 20 year old would find meaningful. The fact that it's in B&W is another convention, signaling to the 20 YO that this is as meaningful as the Dorothea Lange photo that sits near ands dear to the hearts of all activists with photographic pretensions.

 

I just hate getting preached at.

Geez Kochanowski, he�s a new member, gets a new scanner, and then keenly posts a 20 year old photograph he made only to get a scolding by you and grant as if he�s should of know better. Maybe diplomatically point Gary towards the forums �thou shalt not�s��? Preaching? Lighten up.

 

Welcome Gary.

Would'nt that just make it a pitcure of a guy sleeping then?

Two things make this more than simply a "cliche" shot of a homeless person. The bench. Look at it. A real estate ad. Then the wall art. Ironically "Innocent Victims" is not about the man on the bench.

 

As a purely documentary photograph this is first rate. It is first rate not simply because this is a picture of a homeless person but because of the ironies I mentioned.

 

Get it published.

That's fine Alex, to you it may be a good picture, to me it isn't, reasonable people can disagree. The point is, whether it's 20 years old or shot last week, I don't care for the hand-wringing as a side dish to photography that accompanied this shot.

While this won't exactly seem like an intellectual observation I'll use it anyway...

 

There's a scene in the Clint Eastwood western "High Plains Drifter" that's particularly appropriate to the dilemma over what to do with the homeless.

 

After the hotel in the evil little town of Lago is destroyed in one of the film's many scenes of havoc, the question arises: What to do with the permanent residents who were displaced?

 

Eastwood's "drifter" suggests the preacher and townfolk put up the newly homeless in their own homes. For a moment the preacher recoils at the thought of hosting the homeless in his abode. But he quickly recovers his composure when he sees an opportunity to profit, offering to shelter the displaced at a price "no higher than you were already paying." (Paraphrasing.)

 

And *that's* what we'll always do with the homeless: "Take care of them" as long as it isn't in our homes and doesn't cost us anything.

 

Let he who is without a sense of irony paint the town red.

Iron red.

Gary can be criticized for taking such shots only by those who do not appreciate the importance of documentation of the times and cultures that we live within.

 

To the guy on the bench, you may be encroaching in his bedroom. And that's the sad reality that needs documenting; that, ultimately, there is no absolute social "safety net". Future historians need these images. Hell, it might not hurt if more of us took a good, hard look once in a while.

 

Anyone take a stroll lately through the park along Santa Monica, by the pier? Talk about walking through someone's bedroom...

 

To disallow the taking and distribution of such images only serves those in power who wish such situations be swept under the rug.

 

"...you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free..."

<i><blockquote> only by those who do not appreciate the importance of documentation

of the times and cultures that we live within </blockquote> </i><p>

 

As opposed to which time periods which you think did not need documentation? <p>

 

I think some people were not objecting to documentary photography, but to cliched

photography of the homeless, or photography which uses the helpless as ironic

props...also cliche. <p>

 

Not me. I love a good 'homeless dude next to ironic sign' photo. Also photos of beach

sunsets, slot canyons, dewdrops on flowers, people photographing themselves in their

rearview mirrors, selective desaturation for no reason, and kittens getting in trouble. Those

adorable little rascals!

<i>"I'm with Grant on this one. Let's make a pledge that we will

resist the temptation to sneak up on sleeping winos and

editorialize them, shall we?" <P>

And that, my friend, is why we will see this scene in another 20

years. Let's just ignore society's shame. Shall we.</i><P>

While I don't see anything wrong with photographing homeless

people in public, and there are even contexts in which such

photography may be part of an effort to help, let's not kid

ourselves that taking the occasional opportune snap of a bum

on a bench is going to make the problem go away. The problem

exists not because no one is aware of it (as some of the

arguments in this thread seem to imply) but because it is

complex and difficult to solve.

I agree with Joe. As long as the problem exists photographs of the problem need to exist along with it. Certainly a lot of people do not want to see photographs like this, just as they do not want to see homeless people themselves. That, however, is beside the point.

 

Certainly showing photographs like this will not make the problem go away. It may not even win hearts and minds. One person seeing Gary's photograph might feel compassion for the homeless man. Another might be disgusted that "one of them" is using a public bench for a bed. In the short term the protests of the latter person will very likely get immediate action (the police removing the homeless person from the bench) while the compassionate person will not be able to change the homeless person's life.

 

There are ethical issues involved in photographs of homeless people. I do not mean only violating their space or inadvertantly treating them as curiousities.

 

Should your shots gain attention you may have goodies come your way in terms of money and positions. The lives of the homeless people you have photographed will not change. You will not have meant to, but you will have exploited their misery for your profit.

 

The answer is not to stop taking photographs of homeless people but for photographers to have some kind of social commitment.

 

What Gary's photograph does is restate a contradition in American society. A rich society as the United States ought not to have any poor people. Yet there are statistically something like 36 million poor people in the U.S. Many of these are working people whose wages do not allow them proper housing.

 

The problem is certainly difficult and complex but that is not why the problem exists. It exists because there are flaws in the our social system. These are flaws that could be mended if enough people wanted it to happen. I could go on, but as this is a photography forum I'll not expand on this here.

 

Getting back to Gary's photograph, I believe that this is a lucky shot. The juxtapositions I spoke of make this photograph. A series would require a personal commitment which would entail getting closer to the subjects, walking about in their skin.

 

By saying this is a lucky shot, however, I do not wish to denigrate it. Lucky shots are valid as are any other shots of every day life. And this is a shot of every day life.