Parade of Homes

While shooting Parade of Homes, I was emotionally eviscerated when I finally realized that this wasn't just some simple exercise in capturing the local poverty and depravity by showcasing a handful of run down houses. For me, the most hearbreaking aspect of this essay - this experience - is that these houses are occupied.

This isn't a far-off slum in some newly emerging industrialized nation. This is next door and around the corner from you and I. I knew these people. I watched a friend emerge from the house I was shooting, walk across the filth laden courtyard, and enter the horror of a home I had just finished with. I do not think she recognized me. She did not meet my gaze.