Down and out, all help needed

In the notes I’ve provided for these “peeps in the ‘hood” and “street where I live” Flickr albums, I usually write that I don’t include photos of drunks, bums, or homeless people. But since this photo is an exception to that self-imposed policy, I thought it would be a good idea to see how often it has happened; and by searching for “homeless” as a tag attached to my photos, I found that there are just under 50 in my overall Flickr archives of roughly 50,000 photos. Only about 7,000 of those photos are “public,” so you probably won’t even see a lot of the homeless people that I’ve photographed; but I hope that the ones you do see show a respectful and fairly sympathetic perspective.

 

Of course, not everyone does feel respectful or sympathetic toward the homeless people they see on the street; and that is just as much true here in New York City as it is in other cities across the country and around the world. New Yorkers are constantly being pushed, shoved, bothered, accosted, and harassed for money; and many of us have grown rather cynical about the presence of beggars, panhandlers, and other forms of homeless people. Indeed, just yesterday there was an article in our New York Post newspaper about a 43 year old former theater stagehand who says that he “rakes in up to $200 an hour” from kind-hearted New Yorkers by panhandling outside Grand Central Terminal (see “ New York City panhandler says he makes $200 an hour").

 

Obviously, I don’t know how common this situation really is. And I don’t know how many people are begging for money simply to buy more alcohol, drugs, or whatever pushed them onto the streets in the first place. I certainly have had the experience of seeing the same person in the same spot, day after day, always asking for a quarter or a dollar to buy some food. And I have had the experience — as have many well-intentioned people — of offering to bring an allegedly hungry person into a deli or MacDonald’s to buy him/her some food that can be eaten on the spot, only to have the offer scornful rejected. And I have to admit that I, too, have experienced the knee-jerk reaction that the homeless people on the street should just “get a job” and “work for a living,” in order to function in society the way most of my friends and I have done throughout our lives.

 

But I’ve been around for a long time now, and I’ve lived in this city for a long time; and while I may have only 50 photos of homeless people in my Flickr archives, I’ve seen several hundred more, if not several thousand. And while some may be phonies or scam artists, it seems to me that many of these people are overwhelmed and broken by the circumstances in which they find themselves. It may have been drugs or alcohol that pushed them over the edge; but it may also have been mental illness (or PTSD), or a physical injury, or an abusive spouse, or a string of bad luck that they didn’t anticipate, and simply couldn’t handle. I’ve also seen enough TV documentaries to appreciate that, in most cases, people don’t “flip” overnight from productive members of society, to people on the street. For most, it’s a long, slow, gradual descent into a world that they never imagined would happen to them. For others, I suppose, it may be a continuation of a life that was miserable even when they were children.

 

I don’t have the time, or the psychological energy, to stop and talk to every one of these people I see on the street. And if they were truly gifted con artists, I’m sure they could convince me that they were a victim of unfortunate circumstances, no matter how cynical a New Yorker I might be. Anyway, I only have a second or two to make a snap judgment as I walk by; and sometimes I decide to give them a dollar, or a pocket full of coins, while other times I shrug and just keep walking.

 

But I’m also a strong believer in the old adage that “what goes around, comes around”; and even though I think of myself as strong, tough, resilient, and resolute … I also realize, after seeing so many broken people on the street, that it could happen to me, too. Years ago, I stumbled across a book by Catherine Ryan Hyde called Pay It Forward, and while I don’t practice it as much as I should, the principle has stuck with me.

 

So, every time I see someone like this man on the street, I say to myself: pay it forward. Make someone’s like a little better today. Repeat.

 

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Sometime in 2014, I created Flickr album for photos that I had started taking with my iPhone5s; and a year later, in the fall of 2014, I started a new Flickr album for photos that I’ve begun taking with my iPhone6, and iPhone6+. But progress doesn’t stop (at least with Apple): as of October 2015, I’ve upgraded once again, to the iPhone6s and 6s+ (yes, both of them) and this new album contains photos created with those camera-phones

 

In last year’s Flickr album, I wrote, “Whether you’re an amateur or professional photographer, it’s hard to walk around with a modern smartphone in your pocket, and not be tempted to use the built-in camera from time-to-time. Veteran photographers typically sneer at such behavior, and most will tell you that they can instantly recognize an iPhone photo, which they mentally reject as being unworthy of any serious attention.

 

“After using many earlier models of smartphones over the past several years, I was inclined to agree; after all, I always (well, almost always) had a “real” camera in my pocket (or backpack or camera-bag), and it was always capable of taking a much better photographic image than the mediocre, grainy images shot with a camera-phone.

 

“But still … there were a few occasions when I desperately wanted to capture some photo-worthy event taking place right in front of me, and inevitably it turned out to be the times when I did not have the “real” camera with me. Or I did have it, but it was buried somewhere in a bag, and I knew that the “event” would have disappeared by the time I found the “real" camera and turned it on. By contrast, the smart-phone was always in my pocket (along with my keys and my wallet, it’s one of the three things I consciously grab every time I walk out the door). And I often found that I could turn it on, point it at the photographic scene, and take the picture much faster than I could do the same thing with a “traditional” camera.

 

“Meanwhile, smartphone cameras have gotten substantially better in the past few years, from a mechanical/hardware perspective; and the software “intelligence” controlling the camera has become amazingly sophisticated. It’s still not on the same level as a “professional” DSLR camera, but for a large majority of the “average” photographic situations we’re likely to encounter in the unplanned moments of our lives, it’s more and more likely to be “good enough.” The old adage of “the best camera is the one you have with you” is more and more relevant these days. For me, 90% of the success in taking a good photo is simply being in the right place at the right time, being aware that the “photo opportunity” is there, and having a camera — any camera — to take advantage of that opportunity. Only 10% of the time does it matter which camera I’m using, or what technical features I’ve managed to use.

 

“And now, with the recent advent of the iPhone5s, there is one more improvement — which, as far as I can tell, simply does not exist in any of the “professional” cameras. You can take an unlimited number of “burst-mode” shots with the new iPhone, simply by keeping your finger on the shutter button; instead of being limited to just six (as a few of the DSLR cameras currently offer), you can take 10, 20, or even a hundred shots. And then — almost magically — the iPhone will show you which one or two of the large burst of photos was optimally sharp and clear. With a couple of clicks, you can then delete everything else, and retain only the very best one or two from the entire burst.

 

“With that in mind, I’ve begun using my iPhone5s for more and more “everyday” photo situations out on the street. Since I’m typically photographing ordinary, mundane events, even the one or two “optimal” shots that the camera-phone retains might not be worth showing anyone else … so there is still a lot of pruning and editing to be done, and I’m lucky if 10% of those “optimal” shots are good enough to justify uploading to Flickr and sharing with the rest of the world. Still, it’s an enormous benefit to know that my editing work can begin with photos that are more-or-less “technically” adequate, and that I don’t have to waste even a second reviewing dozens of technically-mediocre shots that are fuzzy, or blurred.

 

“Oh, yeah, one other minor benefit of the iPhone5s (and presumably most other current brands of smartphone): it automatically geotags every photo and video, without any special effort on the photographer’s part. Only one of my other big, fat cameras (the Sony Alpha SLT A65) has that feature, and I’ve noticed that almost none of the “new” mirrorless cameras have got a built-in GPS thingy that will perform the geotagging...

 

“I’ve had my iPhone5s for a couple of months now, but I’ve only been using the “burst-mode” photography feature aggressively for the past couple of weeks. As a result, the initial batch of photos that I’m uploading are all taken in the greater-NYC area. But as time goes on, and as my normal travel routine takes me to other parts of the world, I hope to add more and more “everyday” scenes in cities that I might not have the opportunity to photograph in a “serious” way.”

 

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Okay, so now it’s October of 2015, and I’ve got the iPhone 6s/6s+. The the camera now has a 12-megapixel lens (instead of the older 8 MP version), and that the internal camera-related hardware/firmware/software is better, too. Obviously, I’ve got the newer iOS9, too, and even on the “old” phones, it now supports time-lapse videos along with everything else.

 

I’ve still got my pocket camera (an amazing little Sony RX-100 Mark IV, which replaces the Mark III I had last year), and two larger cameras (Sony RX-10 II, and Sony A7 II), but I have a feeling that I won’t even be taking them out of the camera bag when I’m out on the street for ordinary day-to-day walking around.

 

That will depend, obviously, on what kind of photos and videos the iPhone6s/6s+ camera actually capable of taking … so I’m going to try to use at leas one of them every day, and see what the results look like …

 

Like I said last year, “stay tuned…”

Done