Homeless Landscape, Albuquerque NM 2012

Homelessness has always been an issue that has made me think. It brings up many different question and ideas about the social structures that have failed in supporting certain groups of people. Its a sub-culture that people are forced into where they become more and more isolated from the rest of society the longer they are homeless. These are some pictures that represents that community with the intention of showing their humanity.

James Nachtwey

James Nachtwey is a photographer who takes his viewers to places that are inaccessible to the average person. He was born in 1948. The majority of his images as a photojournalist covers the pain, suffering, and tragedy that occurs as a result of war and poverty. His images are raw and shocking, showing human conditions that the average person is terrified of seeing. He has been decorated with a plethora of awards.

 James Nachtwey uses photography as a tool to spread awareness of whats going on outside our bubble of comfort and western security.

His use of black and white is incredibly striking. Its gives his subjects and images a timeless and frozen quality. Although all forms of photography have the potential to be beneficial to people James Nachtwey has gone above and beyond the standard of creativity and capturing an image to document the dark side of the world that we live in.

Even though so many of his photos display disturbing scenes they also have a beauty to them. He is able to compose his images with a softness that shows his compassion towards whats happening.

He is one of a select group of photojournalist that has been to the majority of conflicts around the world in the past 20 years and showed the human cost of those conflicts.

William Eggleston

William eggleston is an American photographer who has supported the advancement of using color photography as fine art. His work seems to be extremely thought through as if he was designing every frame and taking into consideration every object. His images are highly refined and the color is extremely balanced.

 This image has such a balanced feeling to it. The color is so vivid it feels like as the viewer you are their with this boy. Its sharp and crisp and has an uncomfortable feeling to it. Egglestons photography often has this uncomfortable feeling to his images.

Another Striking quality about his work is how many of his images feel like they came right out of a motion picture. His Images all have that much desired quality of making the viewer want to know more and in fact leads our imaginations to guess and make up our own stories about what is going on.

This is one of my favorite of his photographs. I love the subtleties of the sky  and the overall softness of the Images.