His name is Dylan. He stands beside a loaded bicycle, a backpack on his shoulders and one hand in the pocket of his jeans. The green shopping bag supplies the photograph’s brightest colour. His gaze meets the camera directly, above the cluster of belongings that fills much of the lower frame.
The bicycle makes me think about the work of keeping things with you. Bags hang from the handlebars; dark clothing is bundled behind them. Getting somewhere means finding room for what must come along. Each journey has a weight as well as a destination.
Many of us can leave home carrying only what we choose for the day. The rest waits for us. That is a considerable freedom, although we seldom speak of it as one. It allows an errand to remain an errand, a walk to be taken for pleasure, a few hours away to pass without concern for everything left behind.
Without a secure place to live, a brief stop can involve finding space for bags, keeping them within sight, and considering how far they must travel next. The need to attend to possessions can follow a person through an entire day. It claims time and attention that those of us with housing can spend elsewhere.
Dylan’s face remains the centre of this portrait. The objects around him cannot tell us what he thinks, what he hopes for, or the full extent of his experience. I want to give his circumstances the attention they warrant while respecting how much of his life belongs beyond the photograph.
The ability to manage a day can make the need for help easier to overlook. A bicycle and some bags offer practical ways of getting by. He still needs a home. I cannot regard getting by as an adequate answer to homelessness. Dylan deserves somewhere secure to return to, and the freedom to leave it without having to carry so much with him.
- Will Hazlitt, R9 Media Photo Collective