[Leica] photographing the homeless

[abridge at gmail.com (Adam Bridge)]

Every time I read Kyle's high-horsed Commandment I find myself
profoundly irritated. Such righteousness! Good thing he wasn't making
these around the time of the Great Depression or we'd never have
images reminding us of the plight of THOSE homeless. But I guess
that's okay because it was a different era, right?

Kyle's got it completely backwards and totally wrong. DO take pictures
of the homeless and engage your mind with what it MEANS. If you're an
artist and you really care about the human condition then you damn
well OUGHT to be doing that rather than leaving a vacant hole in the
realm of things one should be photographing.

This isn't a place for intellectual garbage - it's a place for passion
and if you have that passion then USE it.

And the hell with St. Kyle and the credo of political correctness he
so eloquently mouths.

Adam

On 1/19/07, Kyle Cassidy <kcassidy@asc.upenn.edu> wrote:
> It's a strict violation of the 10 Commandments of Plug Photography to
> photograph the homeless, because it's such a cheap shot at making a
> shortcut to meaning. It allows us to appear socially conscious while
> keeping 50 milimieters of distance between a wrecked human life and our
> own. Maybe I should change that rule to "Don't photograph the homeless
> with anything wide than a 15mm". If you're going to do it, you should
> have your face up in it.
>
> Omar's a real conundrum. He's live in my neighborhood for years, in the
> summer sleeping on the steps of the coffee house and in the winter
> sometimes on the porches or garages of neighbors. He's friendly and even
> charming during the day but he's a heavy drinker and a mean drunk and
> one by one, people's patience wears out and businesses start adopting a
> "no omar" policy. He's banned from the coffee shop and most of the
> places he used to hang out, most of the bars won't let him in, but
> there's still something fascinating about him. Like many successful
> panhandlers he's endearing in short doses. I've been photographing him
> in passing for maybe five years.
>
> I saw him last week and said "Omar, you look like a freaking GQ model."
> "I don't have much," he said. "You know, I don't have anything, but it's
> important to look nice."
>
> http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/cassidy/pix/paw/2007/3/1.jpg
>
>
>
>
>
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