'The Dispossessed: Skid Road Style'

This woman, homeless but with high quality and colorful clothes and

accessories has found herself (and her style) on skid row in San

Francisco recently, perhaps illustrating a maxim about the

persistency of style vs. wealth, although perhaps time will takes its

toll. Your ratings, critiques and observations are invited and most

welcome. If you rate harshly, very critically, or wish to make a

remark, please submit a helpful and constructive comment. Please

share your photographic knowledge to help improve my

photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

This one is really good, John. Not to make light of the situation but there is a definite comic element to this picture. Much as they say that pet owners grow to resemble their pets, this denizen of the street definitely bears more than a passing resemblance to her "household goods". Style is where you find it and it seems she's found plenty. Excellent eye and a detailed, beautifully presented piece of work

Some people say 'never photograph bums', but she's obviously no 'bum'.

 

She's not high on anything, her clothes are tasteful and she has everything organized.

 

When I first trained a lens on her, she was bent over her two bags in a sort of amorphous (and nonphotogenic) clump.

 

Here, she steps back and assesses things in a way that is far more photogenic.  I was parked across the street and had the ability to take a little time, clandestinely with a telephoto. 

 

I sometimes go 'wide' or 'ultrawide' with co-operation even (the previous day I was wading through a homeless person's personal possessions, so don't think I am not 'welcomed' by such people, but sometimes you have to go for the 'composition' as well as the reality, and here I had a rare frame with 'composition', and I think your remark indicates this frame has some higher aspiration.

 

I had a morning in San Francisco from first light to noon (and a business meeting at a consulate that lasted all of ten minutes), and this was just one good frame among a great many good ones.  It is the first I chose to post.  (It's better in color, but this folder is tending toward B&W, but  watch other services (or even my 'color folder' here) to see if it reappears saturated as the color is even better in my opinion . . . . her clothes are almost too beautiful and contrast even more with her predicament.

 

Thanks for a well thought out review; Best wishes for this coming New Year.  We'll all try to avoid getting sucked into the black hole of poverty like so many denizens of San Francisco's tenderloin and related areas have been sucked into -- the 'black hole of mind numbing and crushing poverty', and thank our stars that for each day we evade such a fate, that's a good day.

 

Agreed?

 

That's part of the point of this photo, I guess.  It seems (like in the 30s) there's a decreasing line between the lower income middle class and the bottom class where poverty's crushing black hole gravity ultimately and sometimes inexorably sucks one in.

 

Sadly, but in this case, as you note sometimes 'beautifully', which is why I don't shy from taking photos of the homeless as well as the rich, or any other of God's humanoid creatures.

 

Beautifully?

 

Remember, galaxies seem to have each at their center one of those crushing 'black holes', but when photographed those galaxies seem things of beauty.

 

Best to you, Jack, and thanks.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

I understand your philosophy, But, Still, it is a shame on our civilization we living.  With the richness the earth haw, it is not supposed to happen. Excellent photograph with stories to tell.

 

H.N.Y.

I agree.

 

I agree that it can be unpleasant both to take and show such photos, and that when such a photo is more pleasant to look at, at here, it may help disguise to the viewer that the woman is in very dire straits, not only financially, but physically for sure (it was cold) and emotionally, as being without funds is enormously distressing, though she certainly got food as San Francisco is well organized in its food distribution system for its homeless population to the point it attracts the homeless from all around and watches after them so they don't freeze to death, which would happen elsewhere when harsh winter temps set in.

 

Anyone can set out to take photos of the homeless and bums (they'r enot always the same) in San Francisco, but to take sensitive, and/or tasteful or even a beautiful photo there takes some special wit, I think.  One other photographer who has done that is Lee McLaughlin who lives in San Francisco's 'North Bay' and is extraordinarily sensitive.  He's the only other person I know of I'd trust to take sensitive photos in such circumstances.

 

Thank you for your kind assessment, as I can see a kind assessment of such photography is somewhat against your grain . . . . and fully understand why. (I share your view mostly). 

 

This is not the photo that comes from 'let's go shoot bums' but from 'let's take an interesting, sensitive photo with good photographic values and try for a lifetime best' and somewhere in there, maybe one can achieve something worthwhile.  I approach all situations that way, so am not hamstrung by 'subject matter that some regard as 'off limits' or 'difficult'' [generally . . . . . with one exception, which all adult males know about]

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An observer was viewing my work in Google.com among 40+ pages of listings within 40 minutes after this was posted.

 

The friend came across the link to this posting -- after less than 40 minutes among all those photos, and on the third page no less.

 

Between Google.com and the NSA, is it possible anything we do online is NOT recorded?

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

Hi John

 

Nice bw-street result. Good work!!! Congratulations and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Roldao

I always AIM to get great photos.

 

Regrettably I seldom succeed.

 

Alas.

 

Sometimes I get close.

 

Not often enough.

 

Alas.

 

But sometimes . . . .

 

You should see this in color, but I'm saving that one.

 

Happy New Year (and thanks for the nice compliment.)

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

I agree with the positive comments given above but feel the image would have been even more effective if her face were wholly or partially visible (not always possible in street photography).  That being said, this is still a photo with impact and implies a story which results in an effective and moving photograph. 

Best regards, John!

 

PDE

I might have had a dilemma IF I had captured with this pose a frame with this woman's face showing.

 

However I did not have such a frame -- only one with her face obscured in this pose, which I vastly prefer for composition.

 

I have other frames showing her face as she slumped over her things, packing them in apparent frustration and with much work, but here she stands back seeing that she has steadied her burden, and her hair obscures her face.

 

I don't have a photo such that shows her face in this pose, and probably would not have posted it; I prefer to leave her anonymous - so that she might be your former next door neighbor or your suddenly disappeared Aunt Ethyl.

 

Lack of a face implies anonymity and thus universality whereas showing the face would make the photo particular.

 

In a way this photo is particular to this woman but is general in the sense that she stands for all homeless women IN TRANSITION who have not yet been sucked all the way into the BLACK HOLE OF TOTAL POVERTY AND HOPELESSNESS.

 

SHE HAS HOPE -- SHE HAS NOT GIVEN UP like so many.  If she sleeps on the streets it's on designer bedding; she has not been there long, and perhaps a friend will learn (or knows) of her fate and will rescue her.

 

This is a photo of transition and potential hope, not of hopelessness. 

 

This is a photo of a woman who struggles, but has it all together for now, despite long odds.

 

Steinbeck wrote of visiting labor camps in California  while researching 'Grapes of Wrath' and of observing fathers who struggled to keep up their families despite crushing poverty and no chance of work. 

 

He could pick out and described those more recently arrived -- they had good habits, kept order, and had not given up.  Their families were well maintained, they had order, lean-tos or other living quarters were well kempt, etc.

 

Those in the camps a year or more had lost children, maybe a spouse, disease, insects and garbage all were insidious invaders that robbed along with the lack of food and good nutrition, then death slunk and took its toll insidiously, but only before these men had been robbed of all their dignity and had literally given up under the crushing burden of death, Steinbeck wrote in a little known published work.

 

Food stamps (SNAP) and an industrious food kitchen program keep the homeless of San Francisco fed, but drug use atop astounding rates of mental illness and just plain unsuitedness for work (plus lack of skills of the homeless and lack of physical and mental ability to do work in a city that does not value much physical labor, have condemned the men --mostly men -- to lives of hopelessness -- lives of little hope of exit from poverty.

 

For this woman, she must have recently arrived (my intelligent speculation, see Steinbeck reference), and friends or her industriousness may yet bail her out. 

 

Social workers may also assist her, as it is not uncommon to see a homeless person with a case social worker bent over them on the sidewalk in San Francisco, and although some may have to sing praise to Jesus to get a meal, not all do, and it's not part of what ground breaking Glide Memorial church prides itself on -- a praise-worthy church with a stupendous program for the poor and society's ill-fitting thanks to Cecil Williams, 84, pastor and civic leader who is unofficial king and shepherd of S.F.'s homeless.

 

These programs plus very clement (nice) weather with few extremes draw much homeless from all over to San Francisco plus a city attitude of tolerance that is decades (maybe a century or more) long, which may soon be challenged as the Google, Yahoo, Apple employees industriously drive up rents two and three times for the limited apartment and housing space with their monstrous salaries, thereby challenging owners of low cost housing to consider selling out and otherwise subverting the city's rental control program which has kept the city of San Francisco renter friendly for decades and giving S.F. its unique, artist friendly character.

 

Big money from developers is challenging and/or trying to subvert the tenant friendly rent control laws and has been for a long time, and six and more figure salaries from commuters from Google etc., who bus in private buses to Silicon Valley but prefer to live in 'The City' as its known are putting amazing economic forces to work against the city's long-term attitude tenant-friendly atmosphere, and rents are skyrocketing (a term  that relates to doubling and more of rents in a year or two for the little available housing).

 

(from a former resident who got his start as a photographer there, and lived in the heart of San Francisco in a studio with a 'bed in a drawer'.)

 

Thanks for a very nice comment.

 

Happy New Year to you, and again, thanks.

 

john

John (Crosley)

When you call a street photo a 'classic' I have to sit up and take notice.

 

Thank you so much for the recognition.   I value such an evaluation, because you do not always rate or comment, and when you do, you reserve your comments for the good stuff.

 

That's my assurance your comment is worthy.

 

Any time you feel moved, please feel free to drop by and comment.

 

Thanks.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

I like this street scene very much ... I think that the success here has been the high contrast in tones. (6) Kind regards

There's something special about this photo -- composition, subject matter, contrasts (rich vs. poor, spirit vs. dispiriting circumstances?) etc. that somehow makes it seem to me to rise above my usual fare.

 

The color version is on FLICKR if you'd care to take a gander; it may show up here in my color folder at some time as I regard that color photo even stronger, but I want this to be a primarily black and white folder and my strength (despite my strong work in color) is in black and white which is traditional -- though frankly black and white is a 'manipulation' and is 'traditional' by means of 'history' only because early photographers would have taken color if they could, but only failure of chemistry prevented that.

 

This is one that works well in color and black and white, and if you do go to the other site, I'd be interested in your comparison; I was afraid the color might overwhelm the message of 'poverty' whereas her fine clothes show through here, but do not overwhelm the idea she's poor and struggling, but she is not -- yet at least -- overwhelmed by her poverty and it may be temporary orwe hope so at least.  

 

Perhaps that's the photo's charm -- maybe it has us rooting for her to overcome her poverty, because we see she is a woman not born to be poor or who has known a nicer life and does not want to abandon it.)

 

In any case, I agree with you on the rendition; I worked hard to contrast it, but the fabrics also helped as they were silk or acrylic which shows its contrast well.

 

I am pleased with your comment; you're one commenter who 'stays away' unless there's something really good, and your presence reinforces my feeling this one is 'special'.

 

Thanks so much (again). 

 

Happy New Year!

 

john

 

John (Crosley)