# Portraits of Poverty...



## Ivan Muller (Feb 13, 2013)

...more images of these poor souls here ....http://thelazytravelphotographer.blogspot.com/


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## Zen (Feb 26, 2013)

Years and years and years ago, I shot almost all in b&w, developed my own a printed many of them myself. So, in many cases, I still prefer it to color. There tends to be more "character" in b&w faces than in color, imho. In these two, the first doesn't look like poverty to me, even tho it may actually be. The first looks to me more like a hard working outdoors character who has spent much of his life in honest hard work. The second seems to communicate hard times, or if you prefer, poverty, much more than the first.

Interesting, isn't it, how different people see the same images differently.

These are really great shots. 

Zen


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## Drizzt321 (Feb 26, 2013)

Great shots. For these type of shots, are you just walking the street and ask someone if you can take their photo? It seems to me they know you in some way, and have some level of trust in you.


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## distant.star (Feb 26, 2013)

.
Love your images -- very Walker Evans reminiscent.

Somehow I am troubled by your use of people as a characterization of "poverty." What I see in all these people is the dignity I always see in people who are poor and coping successfully with their circumstances. Living in community, as they are, is a great help, and I rarely see poverty of spirit or character with people supporting one another in community.

Poverty is not a bad thing. Like all challenges, it takes us to the core of our humanity -- do we survive, perhaps even thrive, or do we allow it to turn our hearts to stone? Poverty should not be feared. Any one of us could be financially destitute tomorrow. It's just a new day and somewhat more of a challenge.

Guess I would call them portraits of dignity or portraits of courage or something focused on the human achievement aspect.

Anyway, keep the good images coming. I love them.


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## RS2021 (Feb 26, 2013)

distant.star said:


> .
> 
> Guess I would call them portraits of dignity or portraits of courage or something focused on the human achievement aspect.
> 
> Anyway, keep the good images coming. I love them.



+1
Great images. I agree with the change of title suggestion...poverty sensationalizes the topic. What I see is dignity in both faces. Keep posting.


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## pedro (May 2, 2013)

Well, most of us are wealthy enough to not click only but support actively any type of local or international NGO who's doing somehting about it... Hope you share some of your hard earned bucks with some of them a side of the photographs here. If not we private these citizens from their dignity, and a such an act we mustn't commit. We do I say that? I myself am part of an NGO who's taking care about these issues. Cheers, my two cents.


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## sandymandy (May 3, 2013)

i just call them portraits.


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## hamada (May 3, 2013)

what is it that beggars and poor people make such a great photo opportunity for many photographers?

the poor in B&W... it becomes a cliche. 



> What I see in all these people is the dignity I always see in people who are poor and coping successfully with their circumstances. Living in community, as they are, is a great help, and I rarely see poverty of spirit or character with people supporting one another in community.



do we speak about poor people or homeless people here?

if you speak about homeless, you should spend a day or two in a homeless shelter.
will cure your illusions for sure.

drunks, vomit, violence, desperation... that is what you will see.
not dignity....

i had a homeless shelter around the corner where i lived, for 5 years.
i think they had 8 suicides and 3 murders during that period.



> *Poverty is not a bad thing. * Like all challenges, it takes us to the core of our humanity -- do we survive, perhaps even thrive, or do we allow it to turn our hearts to stone? Poverty should not be feared. Any one of us could be financially destitute tomorrow. It's just a new day and somewhat more of a challenge.



:

stop taking these pink pills and look at the reality!!
really such BS from a guy who probably never had to suffer poverty in his life, not to mention slept on the street for one day, pisses me of.


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## docholliday (May 3, 2013)

How about just renaming the series "Portraits of Character"? I think that rich or poor, documentation and portraiture is just that - portraiture. Who cares if they sleep in a mansion or on the streets? A picture is a picture and if it depicts somebody's life at a moment in time, then it is what it is.


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## Ivan Muller (May 3, 2013)

Obviously there different degrees of poverty..these people are much better off than many and much worse of than even more, they have homes to live in be it only a tin shack with no insulation against heat or cold...and the community at large supports them via donations etc etc 

I stand corrected but I believe that if you earned less than about USD 23000-00 per year in the USA then you were considered 'poor'. Here in South Africa that would make you a very wealthy person.

So each country and each population group have their levels poverty and homelessness. Because one sympathizes with a group that is much better off than another doesn't make it wrong or out of touch with reality...or whatever, its just the way it is. There will always be people that are worse off than others, that's just life...Here in my country even the most destitude will put up some sort of shelter and the vast majority live in tin shacks only. 


By the way poor and homeless people are photographed far less than the rich and famous. Pick up any magazine or newspaper and search any news website or blog and I bet you that the images of the rich and famous outnumber by thousands to one the images of the poor and homeless. If you have ever photographed a celebrity or movie star you must have noticed that what they show you is not who they really are...its all a put on...how boring is that and how little information does that give you? At least the poor and homeless dont put up a 'facade' for the photographer. Perhaps that's why we like photographing them, they are just more 
honest...

The real homeless people that I have encountered, the ones that sleep on the pavement or under a tree all have a 'mental' problem in that they cant cope with life. I feel sorry for them, just as I feel sorry for someone that through circumstance outside of their control are living a life of poverty, someone that is capable of work but cant find work. Someone who hasn't given up yet..

Just yesterday I was contacted by a previous domestic of mine and her qualified daughter that hasn't had any food to eat for a week. They live in a house, they even have a cellphone, but they cant get work, and the money has just run out. Are they better of than the homeless that live in shelters? Definitely, but still feel sorry for them and will help them. That's just the way it is....


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## Ivan Muller (May 3, 2013)

docholliday said:


> How about just renaming the series "Portraits of Character"? I think that rich or poor, documentation and portraiture is just that - portraiture. Who cares if they sleep in a mansion or on the streets? A picture is a picture and if it depicts somebody's life at a moment in time, then it is what it is.



a good idea...


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## CanadianInvestor (May 3, 2013)

Regrettably, poverty is extremely photogenic and goes to the very core of the viewer's being which a picture of a celebrity/affluent person does not and cannot do. I do not see anything to suggest poverty in the photos you posted, even though they are very good. I think this is because we have been given no context for the subjects. 

Thank you, nonetheless.


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## sanj (May 3, 2013)

Love the post work.
And everything else too.


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## docholliday (May 3, 2013)

There is the opposite extreme also...I'm sure that an "after hours" shoot of some rich and famous would reveal that they are slobs with bad, nasty habits. Look at some models before the makeup and lighting (or actors who spent too much time under an Arri Sun), some of them are down right hideous. Most of the "media" nowadays tailors the menu of what viewers see. 

That's why some photographs are shocking - I have a friend who is from urban Florida and came for a meeting in the midwest. He got scared when he looked out his hotel room at 3am and saw lights moving around in the corn field behind the building. He thought it was some children-of-the-corn sh*t going on and didn't realize that it was probably kids playing (or a new meth lab going up).


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