Sometimes I feel  like people don’t understand what I’m saying.  Or maybe that I’m not saying it right.  Then I find an article or hear a story about someone that hits it right on the nose.

These are the people we live aside, Durkan says. It is important they have a voice and are seen, just as the Amazon techies and well-dressed downtowners that have been getting so much press in Seattle’s boom.

“So often people walk over them,” Durkan says of people living on the streets. “It’s important to get them out in front of people, bring to light underlying issues.”

Homelessness is as diverse as this city, Durkan says. Drug addiction is not the sole impetus for every homeless person. Neither is mental illness or economic hardship, both which he plans to chronicle.

And even more important than getting the stories in front of people is this:

To “be there, in that subject’s life, for a moment.” Just a moment

As hard as it is to pin down an umbrella explanation for life on the street, Durkan says a “cure” or a “fix” for the homeless is, too, impossibly complex. It’s fallacy to pretend a new photo series will do much of anything to eliminate the hardships.
But it’s SOMETHING. A step, Durkan says. For exposing the issue, a call for help. Even if, Durkan says, no one sees his series or cares about a particular photograph, he was there, in that subject’s life for a moment.  Awareness, and all its arms, is good.

All quotes via Not all sunsets, rainbows and unicorns: Seattle photographer moves from pretty to gritty in stunning series | Q13 FOX News.

Here’s Tim’s first Street Story.  Visit the Capital Hill Seattle Blog to see his stories.