Homeless

Homelessness has been thoroughly documented in the past, but all too often the photos tend to be taken from a voyeuristic perspective - the subjects usually didn't know they were being photographed. I decided that I wanted to do dignified portraits of these folks in environments that they were familiar with, rather than shoot them in a studio or in a shelter. With this point of view, I was able to connect with them, to hear how they got on the streets, and what they were doing to get off them.
Unfortunately, homelessness is growing. Have compassion for the homeless. Life can turn on a dime in these times and with a little bad luck and some bad choices, we could be in their shoes.
Jurors chose the first three images from this photo essay to receive 3rd prize.

When asked to characterize the entire exhibit, on display at Emory through Jan. 29, jurors Julian Cox, curator of photography at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and Jason Francisco, associate professor of photography at Emory and chair of visual arts, say the photos respond to an open-ended question: "What is home and where is it?"

They add, "the photographic works in this gallery explore the plurality and the contrariety of a potent word." 

Selected from more than 700 submitted images representing the work of over 130 photographers, the pictures examine what it means to look for home, to find home, to lose home, to be at home, and to test home against challenges that are by turns personal, familial, national, and global. Some of the works rely on the power of a single image, as if held against a surrounding silence, while others use combinations of photographs, or photographs together with texts, toward narratives that are discretely summoned, if not fully disclosed.

"Home" emerges from these works as a site of affection and reckoning in equal measures, as fragile as it is secure, and as elusive as it is longed for.