An article I found online details that many people struggled in the 19th century to make a comfortable home for themselves and their families in the Uk, as poverty became an increasingly big problem. What came out of this was many artists beginning to turn their gaze onto representing the poverty through their work.
The pieces that I am looking at within this post are on display at the 'Geffrye Museum of the Home', and portray the reality oh homelessness for many during the Victorian period.
'A Recess on a London Bridge' by Augustus Edwin Mulready, 1879
'Houseless and Hungry' by Luke Fildes, 1869
'The Pinch of Poverty' by Thomas Benjamin Kennington, 1891
Each of the artists have used their own techniques to visualise their ideas on the homeless during that era. Each I believe shows people that are in desperate and depressing times due to their circumstances. But each of the artists were from wealthy and privileged backgrounds, so it could be suggested that none of them could portray their subjects accurately.
Furthermore their images show that even from the Victorian era, 'wealthy' people have been producing art on 'poor' so it is a well exercised and some would say 'overly' exercised format.
This is why I must be careful in how I produce my photographs because it has been done so regularly, I have even had people say when they see pictures of homeless people they switch off because their has been so much work produced in this format before.
This research suggests how I need to find a balance between still including the 'homeless' subject themselves inside the work, without it turning into 'another photograph of a homeless person'.