Let’s talk about a deeper topic: the homelessness issue.

Should you photograph homeless individuals?

This area of Santa Monica is basically a homeless park. There are homeless individuals on benches, people out in the sand, people dealing with mental illness.

And what is it with street photographers always having rules?

There are just so many rules.

A lot of people seem to be opposed to photographing homeless individuals. And yeah, I get it. I understand why.

But I’d like to explain why I think it can actually be important to photograph what is happening around us.

And this is coming from somebody who’s never really made any money off street photography.

Honestly, I would prefer not to take photographs of people struggling with homelessness.

But I look at photography through a historical and documentary lens.

DOCUMENTING MY REALITY

This is the reality of where I’m living.

And a big part of what I want my photography to do is document my reality.

I’ve been shooting regularly in Santa Monica for years. I walk around this city constantly with a camera.

This stuff is part of what I see.

Just now somebody asked me if I could buy him breakfast.

That’s a normal occurrence.

Here’s what I envision doing with my photographs one day.

I’m 44 years old now. Hopefully I make it until I’m 90.

Maybe when I’m 85 years old, I hobble into the Santa Monica Historical Society, all hunched over like an old man, and I’m like, “Here’s all my photography of Santa Monica.”

Because I want to be able to show what Santa Monica looked like in 2026.

Hopefully, 40 years from now in 2066, the problems I’m photographing today don’t exist in the same way.

I hope things are better.

But I also think it’s important to learn from our past.

Santa Monica is still a wonderful place to live, but it’s got a lot of issues.

And I think it’s important that those issues are documented too.

MORE THAN JUST TAKING SNAPS

I don’t look at my photography as just taking snaps of things I like.

In some way, I almost look at it as advocacy for a better future.

That’s how I think about photographing difficult things I encounter on the street.

In Survey 01, for example, I included photographs showing some of the really difficult realities I’ve witnessed around Santa Monica.

Some are uncomfortable.

I have photographs of people in extremely vulnerable situations.

I’ve seen somebody digging through a trash can who looked like they barely had any energy left.

They were lying on their side, almost in a fetal position, with one arm barely digging through the trash.

And this is a travesty, right?

You can walk a short distance from there and you’re surrounded by extremely expensive homes and condos.

Those two realities exist right next to each other.

That’s the Santa Monica I’m documenting.

WHY LEAVE THAT OUT?

So I look at these things and think, what are people going to think about this period 40 years from now?

Hopefully things improve.

Hopefully people look back and say, “What were they doing? We never want to repeat that.”

We’re living through it right now.

Obviously I’m not the only person documenting it.

I’m not saying my photographs are anything special.

I just want to put my own personal spin on it and be part of the conversation.

That’s why I don’t automatically say I’m never going to photograph somebody because they’re homeless.

To me, excluding that reality completely would also be making a decision about how I document the city.

THE QUESTION OF EXPLOITATION

I think some people who are against photographing homeless individuals look at it as profiting from somebody else’s misery.

And I understand that argument.

That’s worth thinking about.

But for me personally, making money isn’t the reason I’m doing street photography.

I have a job.

Photography is something I do because I love doing it and because it’s an extremely productive part of my life.

I’m interested in creating a record of what I’m seeing.

If somebody were specifically exploiting vulnerable people just to make money from their circumstances, I understand why people would have a problem with that.

That’s different from what I’m trying to do.

I’m trying to document the place where I live honestly.

And sometimes the reality isn’t comfortable.

KEEP AN OPEN MIND

So if you’re in the camp that says you should never photograph homeless individuals, I’d just say keep an open mind about why different photographers make the photographs they make.

Think about intention.

Think about context.

Think about what the photograph is saying.

Think about why the photographer believes the moment is worth documenting.

For me, I don’t want to create a sanitized version of Santa Monica where I photograph everything that’s beautiful and simply pretend the difficult parts aren’t there.

I want to document my reality.

Hopefully decades from now these photographs become a record of a city that changed for the better.

That’s really how I look at it.

Photography can show the beautiful stuff.

It can show the weird stuff.

It can show everyday life.

And it can show the uncomfortable stuff too.

That’s part of documenting a place honestly.

So I’m going to keep walking, keep looking, and keep photographing Santa Monica as I actually experience it.