TITLE: Streetcorner Stories: Signs of the Times

In a letter to his father about his father's portrait, Richard Avedon said “I want your intensity to pass into me, go through the camera, and become a recognition to a stranger.”

That is what I am trying to do in these portraits. Getting such images of the homeless is a scary thing, for many reasons. But, as Avedon says, “Being a photographer and playing with light means playing with fire. Neither the photographer nor the subject gets out of it unsinged.”

'Recognition by strangers' of dirty people surrounded by heaps of garbage is not a likely thing, so these photographs were taken with them isolated against a blank background reminiscent of Avedon's famous portraits. I used a simple portable studio of my own design that could be set up in ten minutes to photograph them where I found them. The purity of the studio becomes ironic. The black and white implies serious, not snapshot; timeless and monumental, not pretty.

To capture images like these, there had to be a level of trust and intimacy between photographer and subject. No posing, just non-judgmental conversation. For the 'intensity of truth' to pass through the camera, the camera must disappear, and a human connection made. Certainly the experience of photographing and talking with these people has left its mark on me.

Large very-high-resolution exhibition prints of these photographs reveal eloquent details: a tear, bruised knuckles, drug-addled eyes or a cigarette box peeking out of a pocket that says only “Timeless.” The subjects' accompanying stories (in the image metadata), told in their own words, resonate with the images and the photographer disappears.

"My photographs at best hold only a small strength," said famous photojournalist W. Eugene Smith, "but through them I would suggest and criticize and illuminate and try to give compassionate understanding."

AUTHOR: George Phillips (United States)

Our family album shows me at age four using a Brownie camera. Little did I know it was the beginning of a life of photography. Whether it was hauling a view camera up the side of a steep canyon or leaning out the door of a helicopter shooting while my boss held my belt, the camera was always there. I progressed from being the photographer for my high school yearbook to getting one of the first MFA's in photography from Claremont Graduate School. An MA in Communications led to a broader career, but one in which writing, photography, film or video always played a part. I earned a blackbelt in Aikido. I spent three years sailing in Mexico and documenting my travels in a weekly blog.
Although my early serious photography garnered some significant recognition, it wasn't enough to ensure the kind of livelihood that allowed marriage and family. Now that I can pursue serious work without career constraints, the broader skills I had acquired have become surprisingly important. During my career I transformed traditional film and darkroom expertise into equivalent digital skills. At United Way, working with people who are hurting taught me to quickly gain trust and weave stories and images together. Aikido allowed me to relax and confidently pursue stories and intimate images of people who can be intimidating. I am now putting all my experience into a portfolio of photographs that I hope to publish in a book as meaningful to readers as producing it was for me.