Every photographer has a bias, a viewpoint, a story to tell that comes from within. In this case, I think it’s that people have dignity whatever their situation. I think the people in these photographs are portrayed with dignity. I’m okay with that. I think portraying people at the margins with dignity, as part of real stories that matter, does far more FOR them that photography that portrays them as defeated, nearly sub-human.

Back to those of us who are perhaps wealthy, over-educated elites, I tend think our group struggles much more with having squalid, sub-human lives. Here in Cambodia, I recently talked with a friend who is “at the margins.” He couldn’t understand at all why anyone would commit suicide. He’s poor, but he’s not living a squalid life, at least not in simplistic comparison to ours.

Dignity, a real story of what it means to be human … Am I feeling better after that? I hope so. People who feel better about the the world, about themselves, and about others in need, are much more likely to make changes and take action (and learn through inevitable mistakes) than cynics who have given up already and people perpetually weighed down by the world, anesthetizing themselves and each other with drugs and art, or art and drugs, whatever.

Note.
Frankly the debate about positive imagery rather than negative is strange in this context (ie. the relatively affluent westerners) Much more about the needs of the viewer than the subjects.
What I mean is that viewing a story about the positive, striving and surviving aspects of poverty, versus the sinking, degrading, hopeless side of poverty….is still just a view into the ghetto of someone elses life.
We as viewers are just as removed and alienated from either.
And saying to ourselves
“look how well they are doing, coping with living in squalor and recycling things..I would much rasther see this than people starving and dying”
and thinking that that somehow makes us ‘better’ people because it allows us to turn away from the fact that their life IS squalid, is a shame on us.

We should be able at least to view the whole picture, and try to understand that, no matter how much it sours our afternoon latte.

Trust me, if I could find a way to make my blog pay and reap personal gain for me, I would surely do it, because I love to blog, but so far, I haven’t a clue. It’s not about being a good guy or a bad guy… that’s another invention you just made… it’s about loving something, having passion for something, so you do it if there’s money to be had and you do it if there’s no money to be had… you do it if you’re good, you do it if you’re bad… you do it if you have talent, you do it if you don’t.

It’s PASSION, my most irritating, stubborn, and bullheaded friend Imants… PASSION!!!

And maybe a touch of insanity as well.

Manfredi has PASSION, TALENT, VISION and he is a damn good story-teller. His magnificent essay here fits into no status quo I know of.

Again, I apologize… to Manfredi and the others here… I should have ignored your first comment, Imants… all I accomplished was to ignite an asinine, pointless, discussion that is a distraction from the real discussion. I feel bad that I took your bait and so ignited it. I should not have. I should know better. I will do my best to just let you be in the future, whatever you say, and not respond, because you and I are like fire and gasoline and it’s best we just stay away from each other.

Now, Imants – I give you the last shot. Make it your best.

Even so, of all those who post regularly on this forum, your voice strikes me as being the most consistently sour. I seldom see a good reason for your sourness. It also seems to me that you are the most quick to denigrate others – and it almost always strikes me as gratuitous. You also seem quicker to take offense than does anyone else, and slower to let go of that offense.

In this case, I did not state or imply anything good or bad about how you or anyone else here makes a living through the use of their photo subjects.

As to your original comment on this thread, I could see but one point to it: to tell the rest of us that you are on a higher plane of consciousness than we are. So I decided to attempt to point that out to you in a comment that in tone mirrored your own.

I should not have done it. I apologize. Go in peace.