When I arrived, I began asking people if I could photograph their tents, so in the off chance I might be able to photograph someones tent who uses regular drugs. I got turned away from many that I approached, until one young man said that I couldn't photograph his tent but I could photograph his mates who wasn't there at the moment. After speaking to this guy for a bit longer it turned out that his mate had been stabbed in this tent the night before, although I never found out why, and was still at the hospital.
I went into the tent to begin photographing it and was instantly shocked with what I saw in front of me, there was needles and other drug objects everywhere and began to feel quite unsafe. I had to make sure I was walking carefully around the tent so I didn't end up standing on an old needle. My adrenaline was also pumping from the risk that I was putting myself in but also how lucky I had been to gain entry into a tent like this. This tent couldn't have felt more different than Pete's that I had only photographed days ago and are less than 50 metres away from each other. This tent really showed the complete opposite of how some people were coping with being on the streets.
I began the shoot by taking the same wide angle photographs of the tent interior although the tent was an awkward shape to photograph due to it being round, so I didn't exactly know which angle to start capturing it from. As you can see the tent is filled with rubbish, and if you look closely you can see the needles scattered around all the old food and rubbish. I like this image though because it gives the viewer a clear sense of the horrible conditions this homeless person is living in.
The difference between this tent and Pete's was shocking, and to think that anyone can actually live inside this tent furthered that feeling. By the look of the tent itself, I can only imagine that the owner is incredibly desperate and struggling to cope with life on the streets.
There were clothes and belongings randomly scattered around the tent amongst all the rubbish and needles. The tent itself was falling apart and I didn't think it would stay up much longer.
Everything inside the tent was dirty and it was a complete mess. The only proper object the owner had inside the tent was the table you can see above, but all it had been used for was to keep little bits of food on and then to help whoever used this tent shoot up. This image makes the table look disconnected and lonely, due to it having lots of space surrounding it, which I feel connects with how the inhabitant of the tent feels from society.
After capturing the wide angle photographs of the tent I got out my 50mm lens and began photographing the different objects I found around the place in a more singular way. Here is a clear view of an old needle, on top of a bag which is filled with some sort of white powder.
This image is one of my favourites from this shoot because as you can see it captures an old plastic bottle which is blood stained. I believe that after the homeless guy got stabbed, he began drinking this water to calm himself down before going to hospital and thus got blood on the bottle. The reason I think this is because the blood is stained in finger shapes around the bottle which suggests he was holding the bottle with blood on his hands. I think the bottle which is surrounded by dirt and old food is a clear sign of how difficult life can be on the streets, which Professor Green commented on in his documentary.
This is another objet which gives the viewer more information on the stabbing which happened the night before I photographed the tent. Here you can see a piece of tissue paper with what looks like blood stained onto it. I think the image above is more visually interesting, but this image still is relevant to telling the viewer a story about what happened.
What I like about this image is the takeaway box which has 'free' written on top of it, what some fast food shops do is give homeless people free meals at the end of the night if they haven't sold some of their cooked food. This brings us back to what Professor Green talked about, saying that Charity was homeless peoples largest form of help. And that the people who have the very least usually get helped the least by the government.
There was also fresh backs of needles, and also sterile wipes on the floor. These are given out free to heroin addicts so they don't have to share needles with anyone thus minimising the chances of spreading diseases such as Aids. This picture and the meaning behind these precautions highlights how serious and dangerous this problem is.
This is one if my favourite images from this shoot, because it allows the viewer to focus in detail what objects are on the table its self. As one can see there are lots of drug paraphernalia among other objects, but what I think is most interesting is that there is a bible on the table. This could suggest that the homeless person is very desperate and looking for guidance from different sources, or possibly they get most of their help and support from christian charities. I love how contrasting the bible and the drug objects are, it makes for a very strong and unusual image.
This image shows the same scene as above but just includes more objects for the viewer to study because I turned the camera to a landscape orientation. There is also some sort of red stain on the table cloth, which I'm not sure whether it is blood or not. It looks like there has been years worth of dirt on the table cloth, which makes the whole scene look even worse.
Again this is another composition of the same scene but from further away, I included three photographs of the table because like I said earlier it was the main focus for me inside the tent and arguably the most interesting thing to photograph.
There was also lots of Costa sugar packets wrapped up in the top of the tent. I'm not sure if the sugar had any 'pick me up' reasons behind saving such a large quantity of it, or just that the homeless person liked to have a good sugar supply.
This tent was completely different to those that I had been into or seen before. This scene is more like what the public expect to see inside of a homeless persons tent. Even though the images I captured were so impacting due to how horrible the tent was, I feel if the public were shown these images it wouldn't make them feel much connection or sympathy. I'm happy I captured these images because drugs and security are a very important part of the homeless way of life, and to show the viewer how they live day to day I have to show them scenes like this. But I think if I were to exhibit these tent interiors I would showcase Pete's tent before putting this one in front of the public because I feel like it would be impacting in a negative way for people living on the streets which isn't what I want to achieve.
The bible on the table and Professor Greens documentary has made me think about who can people who have nothing or no one turn to for help, I found this shoot very troubling and impacting because its scary to think that someone can live like that.