Photography Thinks
Multitasking. Begging and recharging.
Steve says he has been homeless for three months. He lived with his brother who died. Just hard to imagine that a man with one leg, who is losing his second to diabetes, doesn’t have a place to live. He blames it on a social policy that provides housing for people from Eastern Europe who fled to avoid ethnic cleansing. Not an uncommon complaint in Burlington and not one supported by any facts. I suggested there wasn’t enough aid for all who needed it.
Giant step for Andrew. Sure, its a seasonal job at the Bear factory, but he says that they may need him for a real job, because he works hard. Still living at the shelter, where he has a bunk and a place to store his stuff, he sounds clear and motivated. Still early.
Weather slightly bitter, as am I for being shut out of the caucus this weekend for reasons I cannot even imagine, but who cares about either of these problems. I will continue to live here, hoping the place lives up to its promises.
Miro walked alone up Church Street. He seemed upbeat about the election and upbeat about serving at a time when the job would be more difficult than if someone forced from office by term limits had succeeded in his task and all he had to do was color in the spaces. Why anyone would want to be a hall monitor in this zoo, escapes me. He thinks he can do the job, okay, but for what reason?
Charming, personable, knowledgeable and seemingly experienced in the ways of small city government, can he, if elected, move the city ahead, leaving the 1950’s where it is mired and make it a place more attractive to a growing upper lower and middle class than a nomadic college crowd? More crime. More poor. More vacancies. Not so chic shops. Lots of coffee shops and semi-fast food, but not a lot of cuisine. Does he support art? How about help for the hopeless and hapless. Is he a puppet of the authorities he has served or a visionary? He says he is a hands on problem solver; if nominated, he gets a chance to run for a thankless job.
Good luck dude. Thanks for the portrait.
So, they said Paul thumbed out, eh. Nope. Back after a four day stay at FAHC (actually it was three, but he’s not counting).
Kim’s guy got a dollar.
Chad got a place to live. Set up utilities. “First time they did anything for me.”
I gave him an image from last spring.
Eric stays under the radar.
Sean’s strong.
Just relaxing, which is what parks be made for. Were the housing problem to be solved, many of the other issues creating tension like overcrowded prisons and illused hospitals would be eliminated. Then feeding people healthy foods and educating them about civic duty could be the focus of public debate.
Mic just wants to go home to take care of his dogs.
Weather uncertain. Could rain. Or it could just be raw. At least one of these men has a place to live. The other two carry their worldly possessions around in a shopping cart. Now I do realize that over 2,000,000 shopping carts are stolen every year, worldwide, creating a terrible problem for storeowners and adding to the cost of anything we buy at a store that employs them. But, I would hesitate before depriving the people who use them of a vehicle that has no carbon footprint and allows them to have their property nearby, protected from the elements as much as someone with no place to live can expect to have.
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Not sure I understand the movement as constituted in Burlington VT. Stood around for a while listening. One guy complained that college costs at UVM were too high to send his kid to school. One guy said his kid left him to go live with his mother because the father could not support the kid in the manner the kid wanted to be supported (which could be why the mom left).
“What am I doing here,” he asks himself.
Amanda shares her views at the Community Forum. “I have a place to put a legal tent,” she told Stuart Ledbetter, a TV news reporter. “I ain’t on drugs. Don’t see nothing wrong with sleeping in the park… I am exercising my 1st Amendment rights to protest.”
Larry seems happy being Larry, though he’s coughing and wheezing, wondering what to do when the cold hits. Could have a place if he would take care of Scotty, whom he says is too crazy to live with. “He could burn the place down while I am sleeping.”
An accident that didn’t kill anyone, but could have. Mother pushed the kid out from between the cars. Her leg got nicked. Baggage squashed.
Greg took too much sun to his face this summer. Spent his money unwisely, so he cannot travel to Texas for the winter. He is staying at St. Paul’s with Debbie, where my show,”God Faces the Street,” opened this week.
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Had a collapsed lung. Girlfriend left him. Not on the hot streets, right now, begging. Trying to stop smoking.
But, note the styling. Good personal image through dress. A good sign.
Great thanks to Paul’s sister, Mary, who keeps part of her eye on her brother through this blog, for sending me this image. He did ask for you upon his return, asking that I tell you where he was at. His surprise that I had informed you that he was incarcerated at St Albans, lacked understanding of our relationships: yours and mine; his and mine; and the power of blogs.
Photographers, especially documentary/portraitists look at their work in search of increased understanding of individual people, as well as the human race, in general. That is quite a span in which to find a focus. Every portrait forces me to look at the person, an exercise which can start with the easiest question, like where was this shot made or when and why. But, at some level, I just look at the portraits, knowing they have recorded a life living.
So, he spent 31 days in jail. What a waste. “Nothing much to do there,” he said. Missed the Labor Day Weekend in Burlington. People on the street said it was for a failure to appear; others said his public presence and sanitary practices posed a problem. He had built up a series of unspectacular violations of the public order and couldn’t or didn’t show up in court to answer them. He went in, because there are only a few ways the system can respond to uncooperative citizens who disrupt the peace in the main urban glen in Chittenden County.
Still complaining, he returned to the spot where he hangs, starting the same cycle of present life again, and continuing to age. Yeh, they pick on you. Yeh, you have been underserved. Now what? It be getting cold, again. “Hey, yunno, there aren’t a lot of people walking down this street. Getting more difficult to make a living out here.”