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.
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