Re: [Leica] shel's berkeley photos

[Robert Schneider <robslaurat@earthlink.net>]

Shel Belinkoff wrote:

>
> Dear Kyle ...
>
> Bob is a Vietnam Vet, lives at a small, hotel on University Avenue in
> Berkeley.  He is not homeless.  He has a disability benefit from the
> military and receives some other monies as well, perhaps from social
> security. He's 52 years old and has little to say about his history
> other than he lived in the midwest - Chicago - before his stint in
> Vietnam.  He has aspirations to be a song writer, although it's not
> clear to me if he ever wrote before, and I suspect he's just
> dreaming.  However, other people in his position, and worse, have
> pulled themselves up from living in subway tunnels and the like, and
> have made something of a career for themselves.  There are many good,
> inexpensive restaurants in the area, and he has a hot plate in his
> room at the hotel. He sometimes gets take out food, other times he
> cooks at home.
>
> Bob is a part of an ongoing project.  He is not the project.  I've
> tried moving into the hotel in which he lives but there were no rooms
> available the three times I inquired.
>
> Bob is more than a face to me, as are a number of other people the
> frequent that area of Berkeley.
>
> Please do me a favor ... spell my name correctly.  Thanks!
>

This is all valuable, interesting information, none of which is conveyed
in one or two still photographs.  I'm with Kyle on this one -- keep
working on this story, whether it's Bob or something broader (though
from what you've spelled out, there's potentially a good visual story
with Bob).  A couple of shots of a guy on the street, homeless or not,
are just that, shots of a guy on the street.  Everyone's got a story,
this guy has a good one.  I'd be interested to  see: his room, his hot
plate, the subway tunnels he and others live/lived in, his closet or
trunk or wherever he hangs his clothes, his family photos, etc., etc.
Make him real.  Otherwise everything you know about him stays with you.
It's not in the pictures.  And if it's not in the pictures, then, I hate
to say it, but we're being offered a variation on the "find a bum"
school of photojournalism/documentary/street photography.

Go get more!

Rob Schneider




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