Will the Grinch steal Christmas?

December 14, 2015. New Orleans, LA USA This week a homeless man was given $100 and he spent a portion of his winfall on a Christmas tree to lift the holiday spirit in his encampment. Before long the city sent a sanitation crew out to remove the man’s tree. One of the camp residents saved it from destruction but a short time latter the tree disappeared again. The homeless men chased down the garbage truck with the tree inside but all they were able to save was one red ornament. It appears as though a Grinch had stolen Christmas!

Local TV news stations reported the story and explained that the tree was a city code violation. The tent was also a code violation too but luckily it was left alone.  Viewers touched by the story started showing up with more trees, ornaments, clothes, and food.  What was stolen from him was returned in abundance and the homeless man shared the bounty with others in need.

For 22 years I have been documenting homeless people who build shantytown communities [ http://www.marylou.us/chaos ] so I decided to pay this man a visit.  Our meeting had quite a few interruptions because he had to keep excusing himself to go help others. He was handing out donations and tended to someone’s personal medical needs.

What the general population doesn’t consider is that when social services fail to provide for homeless individuals then the responsibilities fall on the homeless to take care of each other. In every community you have some select few with big hearts and compassion that make it their personal mission to be a caregiver. This is one of those men who will not turn his back on others in need.  People like him act as parents doing what they can to care for the family.

My goal is to tell these stories through portraiture but somewhere between the noise from the traffic above us and the wind blowing my lights around I had a hard time getting his attention. He also seemed to be distracted by the motorist passing by. People were honking and waving because of his Christmas tree. Then he excused himself again to get something from the tent. 

I saw him with cardboard and a marker to make a sign that read, “Help my friend on [the] corner.” He was worried that motorists were distracted by me taking pictures and that perhaps the panhandler nearby was not going to make any income.

So this Christmas season where ever you live please do as this man does and extend some compassion to others.  If the weather is cold, people need blankets coats, shoes socks, hats and gloves. Consider what you would want if you were in their circumstances. Give from your heart within your comfort zone. Give to individuals or to charities of your choice. And when you do it…. Tell them that “John in New Orleans” inspired you.  Because if he can give to others when he appears to have so little, then perhaps we can learn something from him.

I thought this would be the end of the story for now. It is not. In response to the out pour of love from the community to this man the city of New Orleans has given the homeless two days to evaculate all tents and belongs from the underside of the bridge. With one week before Christmas the homeless become even more homeless. Merry Christmas from New Orleans!

For more information visit

http://www.marylou.us/chaos

http://www.structureoutofchaos.blogspot.com

#johninNEWORLEANSinspiredme  #neworleanshomeless #shantytownsUSA #shantytownUSA #underthebridge #structureoutofchaos  #merrychristmas #photographerMaryLOUuttermohlen #homeless #tentcities #ACLU #editorialphotographer #environmentalportraits #merrychristmasneworleans

New Orleans City Council to discuss the homeless

September 4, 2014 New Orleans, LA USA  A few months ago I kept seeing a young girl who was 9 months pregnant and panhandling. I was always in a hurry.  I never parked my car to go back and talk to her. Her sign did not mention her obvious state of being. Having been pregnant myself there was not doubt about this child’s condition. I have no idea what her story was. I saw her for several weeks sitting in the New Orleans summer heat with her sign.  She disappeared about the time that baby was due.  I wonder if she was able to keep her infant?

Then on Labor Day on almost the same corner I saw a mom with her two kids also panhandling. This time I stopped to say hello.

The mom explained she is unemployed and can’t seem to find a way out of her circumstances. While job hunting she needs to take her children along. The employment agency she went to does not allow children and it is hard to take kids job hunting in general. She can’t get a job without childcare and can’t get childcare without a job. 

There must be an agency that could assist her through this journey but she rattled off most of them off while describing her experiences. I never know what anyone’s personal truths are but I certainly do not doubt her frustration.

If a single parent gets to the point that they are homeless they want to hide that fact. Why? Not only out of shame but because parents on the edge of poverty fear having their children taken away. 

Catty corner to where these women had panhandled is a new homeless camp. The camp sprung up after being displaced by a sweep a few weeks ago. The sweep was done to create more parking for tailgating prior to Saints football games.

The new camp is a mix of people. While the homeless population always segregates along lines of common interest, this particular camp seems to house a lot of women. One end of the camp appears to be more easy going friendly folks. On the other side, residents seem to want to mind their own business.

In a previous post I mentioned being baffled that the neighborhood could comment on the TV news about the camp since it was really only visible from one home.That one historic townhouse with a view is surrounded by parking lots and is one of the only few homes that survived construction of the bridge. The camp IS however visible from the street and is surrounded by traffic on all sides.

While making portraits in the camp last week I looked up and saw a man with a camera. He obviously was not working on an art project like me.  He was not paying much attention to how he was shooting and he appeared nervous.   

The homeless ladies didn’t like the feeling of being stalked and the group leader went out to have a word with the stranger who was soon pointing and shouting “Don’t mess with me, I know my rights!” and the camp leader shouting back “You should ask before taking pictures!”  I could see both men were having their manhood tested. 

The camp watched as the man with the camera ran and took refuge in the townhouse. I felt bad for him as it was clear to me he was angry and felt threatened. Surely he was taking photos to document his problem.  He has a homeless camp catty corner to his home and my guess is that it makes him uncomfortable.

I can see both angles. It is also hard for the homeless people to deal with photographers. I should know since I’m one of those people making images of them. When people are down they don’t like being reminded of it or gawked at like they don’t matter. Or worse, have their image attached to someone else’s story about them. That is why my work is a documentary through “portraiture."   The viewer is well aware of what I am doing and why I am there. I avoid wide shots often to edit people out who do not want to be photographed.

I can tell there are folks who don’t care where the homeless go as long as they never “see” them again. Where do people live when they have nowhere to go?  Is it right to force people to keep moving to appear invisible?  Is invisibility really a solution? Keeping the weakest members of society at a disadvantage does not seem to “help” them get their world organized. Should they really be forced to own nothing but that which they can carry? Or should people be allowed a spot somewhere that they can organize their lives and work their way back up?  A place where they get to take part in leadership and make rules like adults. A place to call home.

I also want to address the issue of cleanliness. I have seen homeless people sweep their camps,wash their laundry, change their sheets, bag trash, use toilet buckets with liners, and collect pee in bottles for proper disposal. Ok I had to believe them about the pee as it felt like TMI.

Some campers (not all) seem to be working hard to prove their worth to a parent that doesn’t seem to notice. Or maybe they are just doing these things for themselves and their own dignity. I do not know. 

So what is going to happen to this camp?  Today the issue is supposed to be debated by the New Orleans City Council at approximately 2PM. Here is an ordinance that will be discussed:

Ordinances to amend the City Code relative to obstruction of public rights-of-way and public places relative to sidewalk obstruction regulations and enforcement. (Expected to be addressed at 2 p.m.)

35. CAL. NO. 30,273 - BY:  COUNCILMEMBER CANTRELL (BY REQUEST)

30273

30273 Amendment

 

The camps in question are not on side walks and do not obstruct passage although they are located on public land. Will the city use this ordinance as a way to force homeless people to move again?

Will the City of New Orleans work towards criminalizing homelessness by enforcing laws? That approach did not go well for Miami or Los Angeles who were sued by the ACLU for violating the civil rights of homeless people. 

Or will the City of New Orleans recognize that the homeless issue needs to be faced? They could consider a 1% tax on alcohol like Miami has to fund homeless programs. They could also consider allowing tent cities like in Portland where the residents help to run the camps hidden from public view.  If they have several camps and keep them small they may be an asset for the homeless and not a liability to tourism.  Or they could enforce camping time periods like they do on skid row in Los Angeles.

We can resist our social issues or deal with it and move beyond them. I’m praying the city council will use good judgment and to think of ALL the citizens that call New Orleans home. Certainly, that is not an easy job they have.

Establishing MUTUAL TRUST

Not only did I have to earn their trust, they had to earn mine!

I am working alone as I shoot and going inside these wooden boxes is sort of a requirement so I had to get over my fear and decide that I can trust some people.

My first day shooting alone was sort of scary.  I really wanted to move this series along which means I needed to convince people to let me in their homes. But once inside the best shots will be a mixture of artificial and natural light from the door so I need to be standing deep inside the room and they needed to be close to a door or window.

Ok, lets think about this. I am a girl alone with thousands of dollars of camera equipment and I am asking people (mostly men) to go inside their shanty and have them block the entrance?  Yes!  Indeed this sounds insane! But if I want to do this project then this is how it has to be done.

Title: Jerome's Porn Http://www.marylou.us/chaos

So here I am alone in a camp with a lot of people around. Some people like me and some do not. Some I have already photographed. I need to meet someone new and see if I can get them to let me take a portrait inside their home.

Before long I met a big dark skinned black guy named Jerome.  He was from Jamaica with a bit of an accent. Says he is in college and lives in the camp. Wow was he ever big. He was 6’3” at least and weighed about 240 pounds. He said he wanted to show me something inside his house. I wasn’t sure if I should be thrilled that I found someone to photograph or freaked out that this guy could hurt me.

I guess I was more fearful than I would admit because I didn’t want to go past his front door. If I were to get in a battle with this guy I would not win. He says “ You can’t see it from there. Come in and sit on my bed.” I was getting scared. This was so dumb. I should not go in. This guy could totally hurt me. Jerome started to pick up on my apprehension and says “Are you scared?  I won’t hurt you.  I promise. Please.” Great that comment just made my fears worse.

I was scared because people in my personal life were telling me to be scared and to stop this project but my gut said that I needed to do this documentary and whimping out was not an option. Besides, I was the one who decided the best shots were from the inside. I needed to have faith that I was there that day for a reason.   I went in and set on the bed.

When I looked up at what he wanted me to see so badly I started to laugh uncontrollably. Jerome said “ See I told you had nothing to worry about with me.” God was he ever right about that. What he wanted me to see was his collage of naked men with all their male glory. Yes indeed it was  male Porn. No,  Jerome was not interested in me at all!

So much for the great light from the doorway. There was not enough light inside to make a photograph of the porn without a flash. Early on in those days I was just working with an off camera strobe. Now I have battery operated studio strobes.

Not only did I feel relaxed enough to photograph Jerome but he brought me into his world of men dealing with their sexuality.  The island had a subculture of transvestites, transexuals and male protitutes. This is a world that lived outside the vision of my catholic upbringing in the foothills of Appalachia.

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.

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.

 

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.

Producing a final presentation

Where do I start to Blog about a topic that has been on my mind for almost 20 years?  When I moved to Miami in January 1993 the problems between homeless people and the City of Miami was already happening. I was in major culture shock arriving from the Midwest to a city where English is not the primary language. Then to have homeless people trying to wash my windshield at every stop light and seeing communities of people living in plywood boxes certainly made me question what was going on in this world.

I have this strong personal curiosity.  What are the daily lives of these people like? What do their shacks look like on the inside? How do they feel about living like this?  I ask questions about people a lot in life. It is one thing to have a thought. It is another thing to be brave enough to go up and introduce yourself and start asking these questions.

At first I took friends along with me to these camps but after one trip none of them wanted to do it again.  Not even my boyfriend!  It would have been really helpful to have a Spanish translator but I learned to not allow the language barrier to hold me back. One thing I knew for sure no one had the passion that I had for this story. If I wanted to do this project than I had to be brave enough to do it alone, and I did.

Creating images was one task. Getting the story out to the public was been a whole new set of obstacles. People get excited to hear about my personal work until I use the buzz words “homeless people” or “sex offenders.” Once I do that the conversation drops like a lead balloon. 

I’m not here to tell you how to think or feel about our social abnormalities.  It is not my place to tell you what is right or wrong. I am simply here to share the journey I took and the viewers can make up their own minds about what to do with the information.

Through the process of this documentary I learned about myself. At first I wanted to help everyone. Only I am one person and those that I wanted to help by far out number me. So how do I help them?  I am not social worker. I am not homeless advocate. I am not a lawyer or a philanthropist.  I am not any of those people nor will I ever be in those roles. What I am is a visual artist with a story to tell. It is time to share the stories and to start a fresh dialogue about our humanity and topic of homelessness in America. 

Finishing this project will require funding. I would like to photograph more as the middle class increasingly swell into the ranks of the homeless. Or I can accept that what I have done is enough and try to get a large exhibition into some venues where the public can experience this imagery.

Please visit my webpage and look at my images with this story:

http://www.marylou.us/chaos.

I also have a professional presence on Facebook where I will list my Blog updates:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Photographer-MaryLou-Uttermohlen/201723200603

My professional work can be viewed at http://www.marylou.us