09/09/2026
Occasionally, I’ve been lucky enough to head out onto the streets with a still photographer while documenting homelessness. There’s something different about still photography. Video captures a story as it unfolds, but a photograph can freeze a single moment, an expression, a feeling, and somehow make you sit with it.
I’ve always loved collaborating with other storytellers and seeing how we can document the same moment through different lenses.
Today, while going through some old photographs, I found these from a trip to New Orleans in 2010 with photographer Shaun Escoffery. We were out on the streets meeting and talking with homeless people and documenting their lives.
I remember it being an extremely hot, humid Louisiana day. Looking at these photographs 16 years later, I can almost feel that heat again. But what really struck me were the faces. The expressions. The emotion Shaun captured in a fraction of a second.
So much has changed since 2010, yet homelessness remains one of the most urgent and misunderstood issues in America.
That’s the power of a still photograph. Sometimes one frame can bring you right back to a person, a place, and a moment you thought you’d forgotten.
New Orleans, 2010
Photography: Shaun Escoffery
