Poverty

[David Murphy]

BTW Pizzahut, that C Sonnar 50mm F1.5 really delivers

 

[Pablito]

Are you absolutely sure that mother and child live there? Their clothes and accessories do not look cheap. The child especially looks well outfitted and curious. My impression is that the mother knows not to look around a lot in such a neighborhood -- keep your head down, don't look at anyone, keep walking, etc. -- while the child still has yet to learn this.

This could be the case but it also might be an erroneous conclusion. Based on my work around the world, I know that many people who live in conditions far worse than those depicted here manage to present themselves dressed very nicely and groomed very fashionably. I guess what I'm saying is that people who dress nicely and pay attention to their appearance can also live in poverty. It's often a question of resourcefulness, self-image or necesity (must look good for their jobs, menial as those jobs may be). I have worked in poor communities where huge effort is taken to make sure the children are nicely dressed, especially for school.

I am not attacking endustry, his observation is perfectly valid.

 

[Roger Hicks]

The whole idea of cashing in on poverty (by photographing it) makes me very queasy. Yes, I have photographed poverty. It can be very picturesque. But I have in most cases photographed it only in an attempt to make it better -- Tibet in exile -- or because I happened to be there and poverty wasn't the subject: I photographed people who were happy, at least temporaritly, despite their poverty. Some saw themselves as poor; some didn't.

I'll separate this from subsistence living -- a small fisherman on the coast of Coromandel, an elderly widow on a smallholding in Transylvania (whom I helped set up a haystack) -- because I photographed them at work, doing their best to earn a living: something with which we are all familiar, and with which we can all identify, a reassertion of our common humanity.

There's also the question of relative poverty. A friend in California has had no hot running water for several months. This is not the cost of the broken water-heater -- $500 -- but the cost of re-plumbing most of the house in order to meet local regulations, which runs into many thousands. She is retired and looking after a sick friend, and simply cannot afford the re-plumbing, and I certainly can't afford to lend/give her the money. Fortunately she is expecting a small bequest soon which will solve matters. Until then, she bathes with water heated on the stove...

I have myself lived in 'relative poverty' and have some difficulty with the concept, when it is taken to its extremes: I did not really miss the colour television or the car. Fortunately that was decades ago.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[nitrox1]

There's a guy in NYC who goes into the projects in Brooklyn to photograph gang bangers and drug addicts. I consider myself a bit of trooper in terms of the places I venture here in NYC but this is like something out of Dante's Inferno. Hell, he even goes into the favelas in Rio.

http://www.artcoup.com/

Good god man, that's some hard core ****. Photographing the business end of a stoned gangbangers gat while his finger is indexed on the trigger is a pretty foolhardy adventure. Amazing stuff. No thank you.

John

 

[rsl]

Anyone shooting poverty can learn a lot from the work done by the U.S. Farm Security Administration during the depression. Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, in particular, showed people in grinding poverty, but they also showed their spirit and their humanness. Their people came across as people -- whom you could know. I saw some terrible poverty in Korea during the Korean war -- refugees living under the bridge in Taegu in cardboard boxes. But if you looked closely you also saw that these were people who were refusing to be beaten. There's only one picture I shot there that still breaks my heart every time I look at it. This is it.

 

[dshugar]

These photos are from northern Laos. Some extremely poor villages here but with a lot of hope. They had started, with the help of UNESCO, an ecotourism business and we're using the proceeds to buy small solar panels for their homes so that each could power a small radio or light bulb....

 

[oftheherd]

Anyone shooting poverty can learn a lot from the work done by the U.S. Farm Security Administration during the depression. Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, in particular, showed people in grinding poverty, but they also showed their spirit and their humanness. Their people came across as people -- whom you could know. I saw some terrible poverty in Korea during the Korean war -- refugees living under the bridge in Taegu in cardboard boxes. But if you looked closely you also saw that these were people who were refusing to be beaten. There's only one picture I shot there that still breaks my heart every time I look at it. This is it.

Very poignant. The country and population has moved beyong that and there is very little memory of those times now. Fortunate that they are beyong it, but unfortunate that they don't remember how they got where they are nor what caused the distant bad times.

 

[Pablito]

Anyone shooting poverty can learn a lot from the work done by the U.S. Farm Security Administration during the depression. Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, in particular, showed people in grinding poverty, but they also showed their spirit and their humanness. Their people came across as people -- whom you could know.

Mostly I think this is true, but it's worth looking at these photograhers indivdually because some of them seem to "connect" with their subjetcs a lot more than others. For instance the Lange, Vachon, Post Wolcott and Delano photographs have a depth of compassion that I personally do not see in Evans. This is just my opinion, but it seems to me the people Evans photographed sometimes come across rather cold and specimen-like.

 

[David Murphy]

According to the US agency that knows everything (the CIA), the per capita income of Hong Kong is US $42,000 a lot higher than that for the UK, which is $35,300.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html

Of self-made countries, Norway and Singapore are at the top. Lot of Leicas there!

Yeah in fact there are thousand of ex-pat Brits living and working there I'm sure partly for that reason. Some of them are even members of RFF.

 

[bottley1]

you call living in a cardboard box poverty? We were lucky to 'av 'ol int ground when we's were young, a cardboard box would have been bloody luxury........ !

 

[steffen]

great shot

Thanks a bunch. A rare lucky shot for me that one, considering I knew nothing of exposure and composition at the time (still don't I guess). Shot with a IXUS P&S.

I want to point out that I wanted to contribute to the poverty-is-relative argument with posting my picture, as these boys would not be considered to be from a poor family in Afghanistan.

 

[bottley1]

apologies to Monty Phython...

 

[photogdave]

you call living in a cardboard box poverty? We were lucky to 'av 'ol int ground when we's were young, a cardboard box would have been bloody luxury........ !

We DREAMED of living in a hole in the ground!

 

[Roger Hicks]

We DREAMED of living in a hole in the ground!

DREAMIN' of a 'ole in t'ground? Eee, poncy Soothern gits...

Cheers,

R.

 

[BillP]

We used to black our feet and lace our toes together and pretend we 'ad shoes!

Regards,

Bill

 

[Thud]

To see what you think you see as poverty look at Dorthea Lange from the FSA. Then look at Jaboc Reice from the turn of the the century about the imigrants plight. Then wake up explore with a camera and tell the correct story.

 

[BillP]

Point is, poverty is relative. Wealth is relative. A rich man may look at my lifestyle and consider me a pauper; to the Big Issue seller I am rich. But if I am happier in my life than the rich man, and the Big Issue seller is happier in his life than me, then which of us is truly wealthy?

Money does not buy happiness; it can only make you miserable in comfort.

Regards,

Bill

 

[raid]

According to the US agency that knows everything (the CIA), the per capita income of Hong Kong is US $42,000 a lot higher than that for the UK, which is $35,300.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html

Of self-made countries, Norway and Singapore are at the top. Lot of Leicas there!

With several billionaires living in Hong Kong, the average income is inflated [per capita]. Use instead percentiles [such as the median] for the income level. There will be quite a few people living at low level of income there.

 

[Hates_]

Economic change is slow, but I'm certain the Philippines is positioned well to be a rich Asian nation in the not-too-distant future.

Do you really think that wealth trickles down at all? 25th largest economy, ahead of countries such as Sweden and Switzerland, in the world and yet is ranked 25th largest percentage of people living below the poverty line (40%). Many "poorer" countries are doing better then Philippines will ever do. Being a rich asian nation means nothing and does nothing for the people living on garbage tips.

 

[David Murphy]

No I don't think it trickles down, it moves down faster than that just like it did to the middle class in America under Reagan (RIP).

Do you really think that wealth trickles down at all? 25th largest economy, ahead of countries such as Sweden and Switzerland, in the world and yet is ranked 25th largest percentage of people living below the poverty line (40%). Many "poorer" countries are doing better then Philippines will ever do. Being a rich asian nation means nothing and does nothing for the people living on garbage tips.