The story writer Steven Beardsley and I have been working on since last July has finally published. It was the most in-depth story I worked on to date, and the first photo essay. Starting out on this project we wanted to show the new face of homelessness. We saw that a growing number of people, who had never been in danger of being homeless, now were facing the possibility of not having a roof over their head. Problem was, most of those people were too embarrassed to have their story told in the newspaper. But the story grew from there, we also found who was profiting from the downturn, and what happens after foreclosure. For me it was a lesson in persistence. I put in more phone calls than I could count to families who never returned a message, or to officials that wished they could provide information, but were bound by client privacy. We knew that someone wanted their story told, it just took a matter of continually trying. It’s an important story, one that this community hopefully understands better now. Photos and links below, Layouts to post tomorrow:
Video links – Part I & Part II:
Story links - Part I : Part II : Part III : Part IV
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Yesterday I was allowed inside a local church to photograph a special memorial mass to remember the Polish dignitaries lost in a plane crash in Russia on April 10th.
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From a special service at the First Haitian Baptist Church held to pray for those struggling or lostin Haiti.
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Months ago I completed an assignment for the New York Times, and the story ran recently. I was to take a portrait of Tyler Brashear, 13, who lost his father, James, in car crash almost two years ago on a stretch of Interstate 75 in Southwest Florida. Brashear was sitting next to his father as a tractor-trailer rig slammed into the back of their car as they inched their way through a construction zone just after midnight. The trauma of the crash remains for Brashear. “My son before the accident was cheery, playful, an 11-year-old boy,” said his mother, Kim Guarino. “Since the accident, my son is distant, he spends a lot of time in his room by himself, refuses to talk about the accident.”
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Top: Ron, 69, has been homeless most of his life. After a friend forced him to check in at the local Salvation Army, he was brought to the Rescue Mission in Fort Myers. He has been there for more than seven years. Ron has seen a lot of people come through the center and has noticed a shift in who is now homeless. “Guys who are here used to own their own business,” he said. Ron, who has had a drug and alcohol problem, says he is not sure if at his age he will ever be able to leave the shelter.
Below: A candlelight vigil is held for the homeless at a local shelter. Names of people who lost their lives while they lived without shelter were read as others prayed.
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