Finished 9-26-08, rating 3/5, photography, pub. 2007

This is a coffee table book with a social conscience attached.  Blodgett went around the country to a dozen different cities and visited homeless shelters so he could photograph the people who used them to survive.  The photographs are all in black and white and he lets the photos alone tell the story.  I felt that he could have included more details about the people.  The photographs compelled me to want to know more, which may be the point, but it was a little unsatisfying.

The forward had some interesting statistics about the homeless (I wish I could include them, but I’ve lost the paper I wrote them down on) and it was heartbreaking to read how many are children, families, and women escaping abusive relationships.

I think this book is perfectly timed.  With the current forclosure rates and the state of our ecnomy as a whole, I think only more of our fellow citizens will be joining the plight of the homeless. 

This is not a book to lift your spirits or rattle of numbers and stories about the homeless.  This is a book to look into the faces of the forgotten, to appreciate what you have, and then to question how you might be able to help those people who need it.

This would probably be a great gift for photographers.