I know, I know but....

Sometimes we hear the phrase "at this time of year we should think of others". I ask why only at this time of year?

I see poverty everywhere I travel.

For me, it shows just how bad a modern world can be and often is to those that have a constant struggle with just surviving.

This link shows very well the conditions that exist amongst a people that are often regarded as having the highest standards of living in the world (if you believe the normal press).

I would be very proud to produce images as good as those on the link.....

Best regards

Worse than poverty perhaps is seeing vey large amounts of people without the proper access to food or even "drinkable" water.

Also imagine this one.... How many G20 countries out there are running into grave issues with water supplies at the present time, and most of it is ignored in the media

An extraordinary set of pictures. Remind me of Dorothea Lange's photographs of the great depression of the 1920s and 1930s just as poignant but focusing on details and landscape rather than people.

"The poor are always with us" and nobody seems to be able to do anything about it.

There are some good photos there but for me many are pretentious over processed cliche's
I see images like those every day working here in Africa.
Interestingly, many people here have no clean drinking water at home (I don't, I boil and filter mine), no electricity and very little money for food, but they all have a mobile phone (or two in some cases!) What does that tell us?

There's one image in this link Andrew that illustrates the Highest Standard of Living message.

Best regards

I much prefer these

I don't disagree.
We, as photographers do tend to see the technicalities involved whereas non-photographers never question an image technically. In my case I am totally clueless when looking at oil paintings. I don’t have a clue as to what is good, bad or just rubbish from an artistic or technical point of view.

Best regards

Stunning pictures

Excellent images. The grainy black and white treatment add to the drama. I dare say you could find poverty and depression in more than a few parts of the UK.

Regards

Paul

Some of those photos are indeed stunning. Some are cliches. For some he must have had to search pretty hard.

Having recently driven through the central valley of California, and stayed in Merced, I recognise some of it, though Merced seems to be doing just fine, and have less poverty than many towns we saw. Some towns in the Central Valley have no water. Their wells ran dry, and they have no way of getting any other than buying it by the bottle.
These towns are of course mostly populated by Hispanic agricultural workers, already poorly paid, many undocumented, and suffering even more because the drought results in less work for them.
You see beggars in every town and city in the US. Many are ex-military.

You also have to remember that the definition of poverty in the US is different to most other countries, poverty for a single person is deemed to be earning less than $11.670, for a couple less than $15,730, and so on.

If you want to see real poverty in the US visit a Native American reservation.

We saw dried up reservoirs and lakes, but also huge dust clouds as farmers continue to work their parched soil - it just blows away, just as it did in Oklahoma in the Dustbowl era. If they can irrigate they still do so in the heat of the day, rather than at night when it would have a chance of sinking into the soil rather that evaporating before it reaches it. They blame it all on Obama. Why he should be to blame I have no idea but that is what they do.



Los Banos Dustbowl with added noise.

Thanks for that Gwyn. First hand, factual info gives an accurate picture.

Best regards

Consider the islands throughout the Caribbean. Perhaps a good example would be the British Virgin Islands and also the American ones. Even the other islands such as Jamaica.

They sure are popular tourists spots and all. But if one were to visit (let me use Jamaica as an example) and then leave the resort areas...

WOW It's like going from one world to the other. Take a look at the rates of income throughout the islands. There are many, many families in Jamaica that live per year, for the amount of money that one person would pay for a flat within 50km of Central London

These seem so wonderful to me that Michael's comment made me go back again, to search out pretentiousness and clichés, thinking I'd missed something. They've certainly been post-processed, it is true.

Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, of course, but I like the pictures even more than I did the first time. As you say, "I would be very proud to produce images as good as those..." but know I never will.