Bittersweet Beauty
By Shane Welch
23 Apr 2008
This small town on the outskirts of Gary, Indiana is severely poverty stricken. Despite the drug dealers, burned down crack houses, and tons of garbage littering the streets; there are plenty of people still living here. They face a hard life living day by day off charity, and the little amount of work they can pick up doing random trade jobs.
They did not want to be photographed. Many of them mistaken me for someone trying to dump garbage, others thought I was a drug dealer. They only wanted to keep their neighborhood from getting worse. I didn't take it offensively when the residents came to me with questions, or even with guns. I explained to them I was only here as a photographer and they let me wander around as I pleased. As long as I wasn't taking pictures of them or their property they had no real issues.
With all of that out of the way I began to photograph all the broken, flooded, abandoned, and burned houses. I spent my weekends photographing one of the poorest areas of the country. Using only my 4x5 pinhole that I made out of wood scraps and one of my old cameras as a light meter. I documented what I could of this small town without over stepping my boundaries.
These houses were beautiful in their own way. I'll never forget the people I talked to, the stories they told, or the things I saw. To respect the individual's wishes in the town I will not mention any names. But I would like to thank those people for talking with me, and allowing me to see inside of their secluded lives.
