I don’t always explain how and why I arrived at a final image, but a few people have asked me about this picture so I thought I would have a go at trying to explain my reasoning.
Of all the charities out there, I usually support homeless charities more than any other. Not sure why, but the issue is something that touches me. When I sell this image, 100% of the profit will go to the Cyrenians, a local shelter organisation in Aberdeen.
In a single photograph, I wanted to highlight the subject of homelessness. As always with my conceptual images, there are many meanings that I wanted to convey.
So, what was I thinking?
I guess one of the stereotypical images people have in their minds whenever they think about a homeless person, is of that person sitting on a pavement with a cup and some loose change in front of them. Therefore, the cup in my image becomes the dominant central piece.
I am a huge fan of Starbucks coffee! Takeaway coffee cups from Starbucks or other leading coffee shops are fairly distinctive because they have labels that advertise their brand. I wanted to get the shape of the typical coffee-shop cup; I wanted the viewer to immediately recognise that it is a coffee cup, but also, I wanted the brand’s logo to be painted out.
I deliberately left in the brush strokes when painting over the brand’s logo, to give the impression that identity has been painted over, or wiped out. Not in every case, but certainly in many cases of homelessness, the person has lost their identity; their true story has gone, replaced by a person who just sits on the pavement with little to say about themselves, hence the blandly painted cup.
The cup is a little ragged around the edges, because I guess anyone who lives on the street will have had a ragged and challenging life.
Why is the money in the cup very sharp and in focus, yet the money on the pavement is blurred? Well, my concept here is about moving from safety into a space where safety becomes fluid and dynamic. Inside the cup, the coins are secure and perfectly recognisable as money, but outside the cup there is much more dynamism with the coins. Homeless people often talk about lack of security and safety when living on the streets, not surprisingly.
And finally, the pavement. I actually shot this in my studio rather than on a ‘real’ pavement. I wanted to capture the change of light from the dark in the background to a slightly brighter foreground. This is my way of expressing hope, in that a homeless person may move from darker times, possibly into a brighter future.
All proceeds from the sale of this image will go to the Cyrenians in Aberdeen.
NGT Photography 