Social Commentary

Title: Abandoned

Date taken: 11/29/12

Camera: Panasonic Lumix

Lens: Standard

Shutter speed: 1/80 sec

F-stop: f/4.2

ISO: 160

Focal length: 12mm

Tripod: No

              Homelessness is a huge epidemic around the world, and even in America, the homeless population is out of control.  Because of this growing epidemic, caused by a down economy, drug and alcohol abuse, or simply because one has chosen to leave an abusive household, many more people are homeless in America than there used to be.  Because of this, and the fact that my family was also homeless several years ago, I chose this as my social commentary project.

                After deciding what I wanted to do, I knew that there were several options to take pictures of the homeless throughout Billings.  Some examples of this include, homeless shelters, the HUB, and even people panhandling on street corners throughout the day.  I was excited to act on my idea, but finding the right time and place to take pictures of these people was difficult.  Leaving the assignment unfinished for a couple of weeks, I heard a rumor that a homeless man passed away during the night outside of the place I work.  This made me feel sorry for the poor man – knowing that he froze to death because nobody cared enough about him to give him a warm place to stay, or even just a blanket to keep him from freezing.

                A couple days after hearing about the man’s death, I decided to go to the target in the heights to take pictures of the homeless people that frequently visit the area.  Sadly, upon stopping at the light I realized that the homeless man was gone, and only his belongings were left sitting on the corner.  Knowing that I only had a little bit of time left before I had to go, I saw that this might instead make a better, more meaningful picture.  So as I sat waiting for the light to turn green, I rolled down my window and snapped several pictures of his stuff; trying to pay careful attention to the composition and angle of the photo.

                Once I took several photos, I went to class and edited a couple of my favorites.  I did this by enhancing the color of the man’s belongings, and almost completely de-saturating the background.  The reason I muted the background was to represent the dreary life they live, but I left their stuff  saturated to show that homelessness is very real and can happen to almost anybody.

                Although this photo isn’t exactly the way I imagined it would be, I believe that the circumstances that presented themselves lent to a picture that achieves a better purpose than the one I originally had in mind. Overall I feel very satisfied with it, and am glad that I had the opportunity to go out into the community and make a statement for the homeless.