I just wanted to say thank you to everybody again. This was hard to do, to open up and vent about this but wow am I glad I did, felt so much better.
It's tough, it's something I was raised since birth to believe in and do so this is all new to me. In a few months it will be my FIRST birthday! Did celebrate my first Halloween (that was fun at 33!), and maybe next year my first actual Christmas, who knows.
The photography project went incredibly well yet very shocking and different. I went in thinking I was going to capture true pain and sad stories but was thrown off when I found that all the homeless people in the area were all in one spot for a dinner given by a local church.
I was looking all over town and there were none to be found, then somebody told me where everybody was. Hey not bad to do have everybody in one place to do this since it was COLD out.
I showed up to see homeless people throwing snow balls at each other, playing with the "community" dog Dozer and talking and hanging around with their friends. Very different then what I expected.
So I went out and started talking to people and asking if I could take their pictures. Some didn't want anything to do with me but still had a smile on their face. Others were just fine with it and wanted to know MY story and what I was doing. What was a little disturbing was the fact that most of these people were veterans. The stories you don't hear, the ones that don't have bumper stickers on their cars stating the fact but the people who came back a little "different". It was quite sad............
Some people insisted that this was temporary, others said they were just pure lazy. I could go on and on with my personal view on this and the system and all that but that's for another time.
How about a few other pictures. Notice how some of these people have smiles on their faces? It was really strange........some asked me even "should I smile or show a serious sad face?". I would tell them to be themselves, how they felt right now.
18 year old kid who has been homeless for 2 years!
This man insisted on not talking to me but said it was okay to take his picture.
I call this one "pray for me".
This is something I want to do every year and I hope I get the chance to. I've had a few friends express interest in helping me next year, that should be fun.
Thanks again to everybody here for the encouragement, kind words and inspiration.
It's great to be a part of something like this community.
aaron