Homelessness is all around us, lots of times we do not see it.

As the week ends I can say it was truly rewarding. My main shoots this week were for a national company in Thurles and a shoot to illustrate the web site for the Simon Community.
On the Simon project we started with the principle that Simon aims its services at preventing homelessness. I was told that they needed nine hero images.
For this image I looked at situations where people sleep in their car. People pass by not realising that they may be only inches from a homeless member of our community. For this image I selected the promenade at the holiday resort of Salthill. Deliberately we parked the car on a yellow box, as a homless person has more to worry about than the niceties of parking. We lit the car inside with a radio triggered flash. I placed another flash under the car to give separation from the background. I had a volunteer lie in the car with others set to walk slowly past to allow me give controlled blur. We waited for the sweet time of dusk.
In undertaking the project I really felt connected with the fantastic crew from Simon, a really dedicated group of young adults. The project leader who was working with me was most impressive in her ability to understand my blue sky thinking and arrange everything I needed for the series of shots. With charities in Ireland having a hard time because of the “console crisis” , it was great to see people dedicated to helping our homeless.
There but for fortune go I.