Sample Photo Essays

On the Streets of San Francisco

Most days, within a block of my house in San Francisco, I’ll encounter someone who is unhoused. Since 2011 I have befriended and photographed unhoused people, and the experience has changed me in a way I never would have imagined. . . . One man said to me, “Most people see us as drunks, but you talk to us and see our humanity.” This is what I hope my photographs convey.

Text and Photographs by Joseph Johnston February 2023
Alberto with Jaime’s head on his shoulder in San Francisco in April 2019. Alberto is bare chested and Jaime is wearing a hoodie; both look straight into the camera.

We Were All Just Kids, Really

It was never wholly about music; it was also about being part of a community of like-minded misfits and broken dolls. I felt a responsibility to capture these bands and that world specifically because it seemed like nobody else was.

Photographs and Text by Michael Galinsky April 2022
Nation of Ulysses at the International Pop Underground Convention in Olympia, Washington, in 1991.

Unsettled

Almost fifty years ago 170 Romani families settled in the Polygone district of Strasbourg, France. They parked their caravan vehicles and, over time, constructed homes on empty land near an airfield, often using salvaged materials.

By Jeannette Gregori May 2020
Fatis, eighty-six, and his daughter, Touroute. An elder of the community, Fatis could not resign himself to living in a conventional house. He passed away a couple of months after the destruction of the settlement.

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