Homeless

It's strange measuring the homeless factor in Mozambique since most people live in tin-roofed shacks without running water or electricity. Since I've starting shooting on the Marginal, I've encountered a number of homeless people. I've befriended some mostly out of familiarity although I was unsuccessful in getting permission to photograph them. There are two camps that I've tried to get into: one is in a drainage structure on the beach that has a changing group or individuals who live there. My attempts are always rejected. At one point one obviously unstable man tried to lure me in there, but a man that I had befriended told me not to go (which I wasn't about to anyway), and ended up arguing in my defense with the man. This same man was also a help when some men on the beach were harassing me while I was photographing (not them). However, he never let me photograph him and sort of disappeared; I haven't seen him for months.

I have photographed some individuals including a man who lives in a hole in the ground. Sadly, they have obvious mental problems. The man in the hole will sometimes talk to me but will rarely say much at all but has permitted me to photograph him. There is a man who wanders the city dressed in rags (seen sleeping balled up near an underpass) who I've tried to talk to but is completely incoherent and in his own world talking to himself and eating found objects off the sidewalk at times. another man is Asian and usually wanders the beach. I've also tried talking to him, but he says nothing at all.

As I noted in another post about paying subjects, I gave bread to the "hole man." Today, after seeing him a few days ago with a bandaged foot, I gave him some sanitary wipes that I had in my car to clean it off; he had cut himself stepping on glass. I photographed him but afterward sat and talked to him, or at least tried to, and asked if he needed anything. He just kept messing with his foot, so I went and got the wipes. He says he doesn't have a name and doesn't need anything, so just leave him alone rather than pester him about spending a day following him around as was my original intention.

I've always been very cautious about photographing homeless and dislike when people just photograph them for the hell of it. I don't like doing it for its own sake, these feelings sort of increased after spending so much time doing my homeless project in Florida and befriending many of them. In this case, my rationale is that they are part of the life on the Marginal and a contrast to spectacular sunsets, traditional fishermen, and hotels and restaurants.

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.

The Lingering Payment Questions

(Photo: a scuba class at the end of the Marginal.)

The ethical line that I have been staring at about paying people has been eating at me again. Like I've said before the majority of people that I face day to day when I am photographing will ask for money which I have never paid. This makes street photography very difficult because it's tougher to step back and blend in when people are watching you like guard dogs waiting to attack. Many times now I've had people come out of the woodworks when I'm shooting to harass me and ask for money. Habitually, I seek permission in many instances, but am overwhelmingly asked to pay or flatly rejected.

While working at newspapers, it was a lot easier pitch for several reasons: 1.) I knew where the photo would go, 2.) People were familiar with journalism and my publication, 3.) Culturally people understood photography more. Essentially, having mutual understanding between subject and photographer usually worked out. Payment would almost never come up. I worked on a homeless project for several months and that is the only comparable situation to today.

It was a different world with dirt poor people, many who were drug addicts, alcoholics or mentally unstable, and typically with very little education. The socioeconomic situation is the same in my situation here more than anything. People I encounter are very poor and uneducated and fear exploitation. With tourism growing here, they have more than likely had success being paid for being photographed. It has frustrated me hearing from amateur photographers who I have spent time with that they often pay subjects.

The photo club here that I am part (started and is led by a diplomat from the British High Commission my UK classmates: http://kupfula.com) which I have mentioned before is made up of amateurs. The first time it came up was when one of the members, an American, was asking more advice after seeing some of my photography. She was impressed by the fact that people were in all of my photographs and that I had achieved some level of intimacy. "How do you do that? How do you get so close?" She then told me that she had difficulty and often paid subjects. Later, I asked other members many who also paid. It was frustrating. Even worse, when I did my photo workshop for Mozambican journalists, it was disturbing that so many of them didn't see the problem with it.

To be sure, I was rejected and harassed in the U.S. too. I was pushed around by police and attacked another time on the street during the L.A. Riots when I could still barely operate a camera (this was incidentally the first time I ever sold pictures). During one of my first assignments in my first internships at the Pasadena Star-News in Los Angeles, California, I had a construction foreman who tried to beat me up. A shady mafia type figure kicked in my car door which would have been me if I hadn't escaped while I was on an assignment in Florida during an investigative story. It's one part of the job that I've always hated, and have many more stories as I'm betting our classmates and faculty do as well. As an editor, these experiences were valuable because I worked hard to keep our photographers safe.

For much of my time in Florida, I was trying to make inroads into an African American community in the city I lived in and had some success but nowhere close to what I had envisioned. Access is key but paying for it does not seem justifiable. In my workshop I told attendees that if they paid, it would hurt the integrity of their work, and people may question the truthfulness and honesty of their photographs.

Here are some scenarios that I have been asking myself: 1.) If I want to photograph a cocoanut vendor or a craftsman, is it wrong to buy a cocoanut or trinket so he will let me photograph him? To me this is tough because I have actually photographed people while a friend is buying something or have gone back later to buy something. But when premeditated it seems a bit shady. Still, folks here are very poor and for the same reason I try to go to an independent produce vendor rather than a hypermarket, essentially because to help out the little guy (charity), I feel that wouldn't be a horrible breach. 2.) If I photograph somebody dirt poor and later bring them some food or a few cents, is that wrong. I am torn here and feel that this may be a grey area.

My ethical boundaries are personal, but they are engrained mostly through years of working at newspapers. Really, it would be easy to do and one could get great pictures with nobody ever knowing. Still, even though I am not answerable to a institution whose product is truth, I would not be comfortable with my work if it was tainted by crossing what I thought was a line. As an independent photographer, I am still establishing those lines.

What Would Lewis W. Hine Do?

Street children sleep in downtown Maputo. Boys are commonly abandoned by families in Mozambique since, culturally, girls hold more value as workers, in a dowery and as future financial support to her family when married.

Am I Stealing? Exploiting? One of the biggest issues for me almost daily here in Maputo in photographing is the overwhelming poverty and the almost constant bombardment of people asking for money. Certainly for everybody taking this course, we are by Mozambican standards extremely wealthy. By my standards as an American, I most certainly am not; however, most Americans - even the poorest - are doing quite well in comparison. This has brought me to question myself and re-examine long-standing personal rules for not paying subjects. Am I somehow stealing from the poor that I photograph?

Here, more than anytime in my life, it is nearly impossible to photograph in public without somebody asking for or demanding money. For instance, when photographing an old abandoned sort of cool-looking building while on a walk in Swaziland last week, a man in the distance started chasing me down and telling me that I should pay him. He was very persistent and was using logic that since he used to have a little stand nearby I should pay him. I did not.

In general when I photograph, I will ask permission which usually includes and explanation of who I am and my intentions. I am honest about it and often (very often here) told no. For instance, I've been trying to photograph women in a market that sell live animals and butcher them on the spot. It's been in good spirit and the women are in general very nice and often quite funny, but absolutely will not budge unless I pay them. I could very well pay them, but then should I pay everyone? Will I then be perceived as setting things up or influencing people's actions by giving them money? Is it ethical to pay? Is it unethical not to?

Today, I photographed the children above and thought, considering my interest in orphans here, that it would be stupid not to. But I was with my wife and two babies in a somewhat shady area. My wife was not too keen on me going out (and rarely is) where a lot of potentially bad things could happen. Plus, she knows that I usually take much longer than I say I will. We had passed them earlier on foot, and throughout our outing I was having an internal debate on whether to photograph them. My hesitations were: 1.) I had my children and my family with me 2.) These children were sleeping and although that was the scene I wanted undisturbed, I instinctively knew someone in the vicinity would take umbrage and confront me.

In the end, after I packed the family in the car and parked them in a more secure area, I explained to my wife that I needed to photograph them and talked to her about my hesitations. Before I left I told her that someone is bound to ask me for payment and that she shouldn't be surprised if I'm being chased down when I return. When I photographed, a nearby street vendor came and started trying to sell me things and then asked what I was doing and I explained before I started photographing. I was quiet and worked slowly around the scene, and slowly more people started gathering around me, mostly trying to sell me things. I was on my way out when one vendor, much taller than me, started yelling at me and telling me to pay the children and then started asking me to pay him too. It was a scene and I couldn't say a word since he was so aggressive. I just made my way back to the car seeing my wife looking uncomfortable as I approached.

Ultimately, I would like to do something with my work that will help, but I still am having the internal debate after looking over my pictures and reliving the events. Similar to my situation a couple of days ago, it is discouraging. When I did a long-term project on the homeless nearly ten years ago, I asked many similar ethical questions. I reread about 1994 Pulitzer winner Kevin Carter recently and know there are ethical parallels here.