The Marginal and the Man in the Hole

I shot a man that I've wanted to photograph for a long time. He lives in a hole in the sidewalk at the end of the Marginal, and I had been trying to talk to him. He unfortunately doesn't say much at all, but he was alright with me photographing him. In the past I had asked him if he was okay especially the first time I saw him, I thought he was sick or worse. This goes to the payment question, because when I was talking to him, he said he was hungry and I went and got him some bread.

Later, I photographed a guy climbing a coconut tree. He was pretty nice, but asked for money and I told him I couldn't pay him. He was alright with that and we just chatted for a while after that. Would it have been unethical if I would have given him some change? He risks a lot climbing trees to sell coconuts. The two situations are examples of dilemmas I run into daily. With the homeless guy, I don't know if giving him bread is breaking my own rules. After finishing the homeless project that I mentioned in my last post and its publication, the reporter and I began volunteering to feed the homeless once a week with a community advocacy group. Our editors knew about it and when stories came up about the group, we did not work on them.