One question you might be confronted with is: where do you draw the line? Raw street photography can be really brutal in its approach and the subjects photographed. In one of the books on street photography, which I really like a lot and which is a big help when discovering the genre – Mastering Street Photography by Brian Lloyd Duckett (Ammonite Press, 2016) – the author explains that it is up to the photographer and his “moral compass”. Personally, I avoid people in bad conditions in general and do not take pictures were a child or children are the main subject. Beyond that, there are pictures I take, but which I decide not to publish. The groups of people involved are similar to the ones described before. As an example, I do have a close-up picture of a young boy (around 12 years old) with a toy gun in the hand, who looks straight in the camera. The picture was taken in a crowd on a market and from the hip and the composition makes me very much think of the cult scene of the 1976 movie Taxi Driver staring Robert de Niro (“Talkin’ to me?”). Personally, it is one of my favorite pictures, but I will not publish because it would make me feel like crossing my red line.

However, I will share two pictures today that are very close to where I draw the line, but the persons are adults and do not seem in very bad shape neither. Personally, these pictures are still acceptable and draw an image of today’s society. But maybe, when reading this and looking at the two pictures, you might not agree with me.