Defining the criteria

 My desire is to show homeless people that build shelters to live in.  I can’t assume that people would be willing to let me in their houses or that they would be willing to be photographed at all.   But if I ask enough people the same question eventually someone will say yes.   Once I earn one person’s trust it gets easier to convince others. Eventually I did get inside the homes but there was not always a photo there to be created. Getting access is not enough. I need to be able to create a great image from whatever I find. 


Picture yourself being in a plywood box. The room is so small that it is hard to show it all with a wide angle lens.  If the subject is too close to the camera then a portrait will look like a headshot in front of plywood. What does that tell the viewer about this story? Not much. 


As soon as I started looking through my lens to compose photos it would become clear that it is hard to tell I was in a shantytown.  How best do I visually explain that these people are in a personal crisis and not just weekend adventurers or somebody hanging around a shed? 


It is clear I had to create portraits and not reportage. That was a given since I needed to exclude the people who did not want to be photographed.  I can show some action shots but the body of work must primarily be people in their personal space with their things.  What do they own that they are proud of? What do they own that makes them feel better when they see it. Each home had some sort of prized possession. 


On  the very first day I started this project I toured a home in Bicentennial Park with my boyfriend. When we left the home my boyfriend turned to the homeowner and said “ I noticed a personal photo on you wall. Is that your daughter?”


 “No” the man replied “I found her photo on the ground and I liked it so I kept it. I like to look at her and think of my own family.” The man spoke with a Spanish accent. I don’t know where he came from but it might be a good guess that he was an illegal immigrant that left his family behind to come here and make a better life. 


No doubt, the images I create had to include the person’s environment to support their story. Once in a while a portrait could be a tight crop but if done too frequently the information that can be gathered by the location would be lost.

If I crop too much out the viewer doesn’t understand what is going on.  The images had to alert the viewer that the photo had something to do with homelessness or I was unable to communicate about the topic. Given that the people in the photographs are clean and well dressed I still have to find ways for the audience to make the association that the subject matter is about homeless. 


My criteria is that the people could not just be homeless but had to have a shelter they created to enhance their safety and security. I had to be sure to watch what was unfolding for me and not look for a checklist to shoot. It is not my mission to project what I will discover but to wait for what opportunity and or person flows into my path.

Please check out my website for this project at http://www.marylou.us/chaos .  I also have a facebook presence at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Photographer-MaryLou-Uttermohlen/201723200603?ref=hl . This part of the project was made possible by an individual artist fellowhip of $5,000 from the State of Florida.

 

Portraiture rather than reportage

One day I disregarded the advice to avoid the crack block at the Miami River encampment and took a photograph without permission. I was watching people with the door of their home open. The river was in the background and the shanties in that area were well constructed with great carpentry. I thought that since the people in the shanty were unaware of me it made for a good shot. Or so I thought at the time.

Before long an angry man shouting in Spanglish was in my face and demanding the film. If I didn’t give it up he was going to hurt me. So I rewound the film to opened the back of my camera and gave him the leader off the roll. I was being sneaky and actually saved the shot that I latter determined wasn’t worth the effort.

I learned two things from that experience. First of all, stick with the people I am familiar with and trust. Secondly, if I’m going to be hanging out at homeless camps alone I can only photograph people who are aware of me and grant their permission. That is why my series is primarily portraiture. It tells the audience that I am present in the moment because I have permission to be there.

There was a wide range of people who would hang out with me but did not want to be photographed.  Since I am a guest in someone's home I needed to be respectful and not offend the people who’s trust I am trying to earn. So instead of creating news photographs I concentrated on my skill of working with light and trying to pull the personality of the individuals into the images.  I am co-creating a photograph with the subject as opposed to merely taking snapshots of whatever happens. The theme allows me to slow down and watch the light, the environment and the person.

Please check out my website for this project at http://www.marylou.us/chaos .  I also have a facebook presence at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Photographer-MaryLou-Uttermohlen/201723200603?ref=hl . This part of the project was made possible by an individual artist fellowhip of $5,000 from the State of Florida. .

 

Self Segregation

 

To put it simply, "like attracts like."  People surround themselves with folks who like the same things. This is true in all segments of society.

When this project began in the early 1990's there were about 1,500 people living in shantytowns in downtown Miami, Florida (USA). One particular camp along the Miami River was in a parking lot that stretched for five blocks.

There was one potty john for hundreds of residents but it was never cleaned and too disgusting to get near. There was also one open fire hydrant for water so that people drink and bath. Dog, cats, ducks and chickens also called the parking lot home.

It was pointed out to me in this camp that every block had a different theme.  The block closest to the river was the crack block. I was encouraged to avoid that area because people on crack were paranoid and unpredictable. There were three other blocks of various drug habits but I avoided them completely.

Each camp around the city had a self appointed leader that they all happened to refer to as the mayor. Once I gained the respect of the mayors my ability to hang out with residents got easier.

The camp on the Miami River had one block where all the peace loving people lived. The mayor of the block was named Bobby and he named his block “cracker court.”  He explained to me that they don’t like any trouble around there. Troublemakers were urged to move on.

Cracker Court included illegal aliens, born again Christians with their own wooden church shack, harmless mentally ill folks and alcoholics. To be honest though it was primarily alcoholics. They worked during the days. They drank after dark when I wasn’t around. They didn’t like drugs or violence.  As long as I was around Bobby’s people I felt safe.  I was told which areas and people to avoid and trusted the advice.

 

There was another camp on Watson Island where Parrot Jungle is now. That camp was also peaceful and the demographics were similar to that of Miami River’s Cracker Court. Those two locations were my favorite to photograph.  Since I was alone and I was going into people’s shanties I had to establish a mutual trust factor.

It is really an interesting concept don’t you think? People at every level of our society segregate themselves to create their comfort zones. People who are drug addicts want to be around drug addicts and those that are not want to stay away them. People really do have a way of creating structure from the chaos around them.

Please check out my website for this project at http://www.marylou.us/chaos .  I also have a facebook presence at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Photographer-MaryLou-Uttermohlen/201723200603?ref=hl . This part of the project was made possible by an individual artist fellowhip of $5,000 from the State of Florida.

Bodyguards, Assistants and Translators

I needed an extra set of eyes watching my suroundings as I concentrated on what I was doing.  In the beginning I had tried to have my friends act as bodyguards or translators when I went out to photograph shantytowns.  After one visit none of them would do it again. They had no tolerance for the smells or the people. My own boyfriend who I latter married had great distain for this project.

One friend who translated for me had her brother murdered by a homeless man a week after she helped me. Since then she didn’t want anything to do with my documentary. I totally understood. I knew that if I didn’t play by the rules around there I too could find myself in harms way.
 
It was quickly apparent that if I really wanted to do this project I had to do it alone. I continued on without having anyone watching my back while my eyes were focused on what I was shooting.
 
A few times I wandered into camps of crack addict’s and they would be so sweet. Then I would go again not knowing that their juice was just supplied and I would have a totally different experience. When high they lose their inhibition and anything is possible. They wanted rides in my car and requested the socks on my feet. You name it. I gave out some food and left quickly.


Regardless of where I went there was always someone with a good heart who would step up and take care of me. One such day I stopped at a new location where a whole city was built of cardboard boxes. There was not a single woman around.  When I approached the group they were overly friendly. I was loaded down with Hasselblad camera equipment and I was trying to give the speel about why I was there.


A stranger approached me immediately from behind and said we need to talk.  He said “Mam I know who you are.  These guys just got high. You are pretty and you are holding thousands of dollars of equipment.  I like what you are doing but this is a bad place for you to be right now. If you were smart.  You would leave.” He escorted me to my car and said. “I have your back.”  He was right about that.  He certainly did. As I looked over at the pack of men surrounded by cardboard I knew I missed a photo op but no doubt it wasn’t worth it. That camp didn’t last very long. Within days those men had dispersed.


It was apparent to me the only way I could continue to move forward was to have homeless people in the camps as escorts.  Over time they told me the low down of who to avoid and who to trust. Oh how people love to gossip. I frequented the locations were I had the most respect for the people. I stayed away from the hardcore drug addicts in places like Overtown. I gravitated towards the transvestites, alcoholics, runaways, families and illegal immigrants.

Without the assistance of the homeless people in the camps I would have never been able to create this work.

Understanding who they are

We do a lot of projecting of our beliefs on people in this world to form judgments. Many times our beliefs are not based on real facts but on emotional reactions to our own projections.

As soon as the word “homeless” is used a visual image is conjured based on each individuals life experience. For example, a common projection is that a homeless person is a dirty bearded man in tattered soiled clothes holding a bottle covered by a brown paper bag. The man will be sleeping in a public space being ignored as people walk by. How sad indeed.

But the reality of people technically homeless covers a spectrum of faces and they will not all fit into the mold of what society wants to project. To be specific, the real face of homelessness in this country includes children who still attend school and common folks who are just down on their luck. 

Even if we separate the chronically homeless from those who are homeless due to economic hardship you would still be shocked by what you discover. Many of the people I photographed bathed once or twice a day.  Encampment residents owned wardrobes and washed laundry regularly. People cleaned and decorated their living spaces. They washed their sheets and made their beds. One camp in particular had a service van pick residents up for temp jobs and these workers had bank accounts.

If you look at the photographs in this series out of context you would most likely not identify anyone as being homeless based on common projections. To put it simply, our stereotypes of what we think we know about homelessness may not actually align with reality.

My personal conclusion from this experience is that people are the same at all segments of society.  Some of them you will love and some of them you may not care much for and the quality of an individual is not linked to what they own.

Why can’t they just pull themselves up by their boot straps?

An old proverb says “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”  In this case it doesn’t help to try and teach someone to fish if they do not want to be a fisherman.  We can’t force our will on others even though we wish we could.

There are two segments of the homeless community. There are people who can’t accept their circumstances and the ones that do. In the first group sinking into homelessness is unacceptable and they feel shame and desperation. Those people will not be homeless for long. 
 

The second group would be termed chronically homeless. They are resilient people that adjust to their circumstance and accept their situation as the new normal. They simply can’t follow social expectations and choose be free with the ability to make their own decisions regardless of what others may want for them. 

There are a multiple of reasons that lead people into this situation. In my opinion, the underlying theme of the chronically homeless revolves around a  unwillingness or an inability to follow social expectations. Some people are followers of the flock and some people would rather have the freedom to make their own choices. 

There is an interesting truth I discovered by watching people. They can’t see their problems and they may not want to change their habits as much as you want this for them. It is our life choices that create our reality. Just because people end up in life situations they do not like it does not mean they want to or have the cognizance do anything about it. 

People can’t change what they do not acknowledge. There are alcoholics and drug addicts in the world that do not think they have a problem.  Since they can’t see it then it is not likely they will make choices to do anything differently.  Think of all the smokers in the world that hate coughing and have difficulty breathing but don’t want to quit smoking. This simple truth holds true in all segments of society. 

There is a strange irony that people can become homeless when they lack structure in their lives to follow the herd and to do as told. The one thing that might pull  them out of their situation is agreeing to a structured life by following the herd and doing as they are told. They resist the very thing that may help them such as a social program willing to address their specific personal issues.  People who are chronically homeless desire their freedom and resist submitting this control over to anyone.  They do not want to be treated like children.

The most interesting thing of all is to watch what people do with their freewill. The homeless people I observed find ways to plan, organize and structure their world. They will create shelter, appoint leaders, manifest electricity, find ways to cook, bath and solve the problems to ensure survival. 

No Compensation

There always needs to be a balance between what you take and what you give but how can that be applied to this situation? Sure homeless people would love to be paid for participating in this project.  I would love to have been paid too. 

Many times I have been told  by people that they will act anyway I would like for the right price. Then they would show off a sad face thinking that drama would make a good photo about homelessness. That is not what I am going for at all. 

The goal of the project is to capture an honest depiction of a person’s life experience. When money enters the scene the purpose of their participation shifts.  They are no longer visiting with me because they trust me.  All the sudden my visit becomes a job with expectations. Since I never paid anyone, money was never an issue to manipulate people. Participation  in this project has always been voluntary.

This project has been self-financed with the exception of the $5000 individual artist fellowship from the state of Florida in 1998.  Photography is a expensive media.  I  never had the extra cash to pay people so paying participants has never been a  consideration.  I have always been upfront about that.

I explained to people what I am trying to do and asked for permission to hang out with them. If they agreed, I stayed. If they disagreed, I moved on. Eventually some people that didn’t trust me at first would latter welcome me and become a friend. Somehow I earn people's trust and respect and at that point they would become co-creators of this document.

Defining who I AM

I started this project with a curiosity of wanting to see the inside of shanties and meet the residents of these villages. What are the lives of these people like? What leads them to this destination?  My purpose for creating this work was that I couldn’t drive by it everyday and not have my questions answered. I needed to know their story.

This first thing I learned from taking on this project was to detach emotionally from the people I was documenting. I figured this out by doing the opposite first. 

On my early camp visits I left  feeling sad. I wanted to help these people.  Perhaps I can find them jobs, bring food or collect clothing.   I was overwhelmed by a sense of “there by the grace of God go I.”  What if I were going through this experience? I was projected my feelings onto them.  

My gut reaction was to jump into action to do what ever I could to help. I was monitoring about five camps at the time and this included several hundred people.  The more food I handed out the more they wanted. The more I gave the more they needed. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that I was out of my league. On my own I am not going to be able to save the world.  I do not have the skills or the resources to make a significant difference to these people.  Quickly I discovered that I was being pulled away from my original mission to observe.

Trying to solve problems for others is NOT the best use of my gifts.  To be able to move forward and be productive I had no choice but to define who I am and accept who I am not.   I am not a social worker, an activist, a lawyer, a nonprofit, or a fundraiser and the list of who I am NOT goes on. Who I am is a visual storyteller and it is my job to simply record and tell this story about a time and place. Perhaps my photographs could affect people to take action but I need to stick to what I do best and not try to become someone who I am not.

My first lesson from STRUCTURE OUT OF CHAOS was detachment.  If I get too emotionally involved I become the story instead of a witness. If that happens my photographs are no longer honest and will become propaganda manipulating the viewer on how they should feel. The photographs would become a projection of my emotions. No one can learn without an open mind and it does not serve any good to react emotionally without knowing the facts.  From a detached state of being I dropped my emotions and concentrated solely on my mission to experience and not react to the story.