To think about if you’re photographing a neighborhood:
What does the community look like in a general sense?
Character of streets, condition of housing, signs, stores
What are the components of the neighborhood, public spaces, religious institutions, commercial areas – restaurants, businesses, schools
Who lives there? Who works there? Is it homogeneous? Are there different subcultures? Is it permanent, transient. Photograph the range of people to be seen
What kinds of daily cycles go on? Show the flow of people and activities.
Is this community in transition? How is it changing? What is not changing? Are people, businesses moving in/out?
Get to know some people who can be hook into the community. Take notes. LISTEN and OBSERVE carefully. When and if you get to know different members of the community, work from the outside/in, from the public to the private, from the formal to the informal. Be sensitive and don’t in any way express criticism of what you’re seeing.
More to come on photographing different communities, not neighborhoods.
