Beggars and the Norwegian Streetscape

-Wikimedia.

Personally I think it's very important to document beggars on the streets, as the Romans you see in every Norwegian town or village now is a very new phenomena that will be banned sooner or later. All the time there's this discussion about these beggars coming from Romania, especially in summertime, and many people want to ban them from the streets and forget about them. If we do not photograph them now, then they will be forgotten and we have lost our opportunity to document this cultural phenomena for the future. - PermaLiv

- Street Photography: A Short Guide to the Ethics for New Photographers

It's summertime and the beggars are back to Oslo's parade street Karl Johan. Quite many of them are coming from Romania, but there are native Norwegians as well. They make us uncomfortable and force us to reflect about what kind of economic system we have subdued our self too.

I think I was particularly lucky with this image, as we here have the contrast between the hopelessness of the woman collapsing on the street, and the rich, uncomfortable, stylish, blonde Norwegian woman looking away, trying to ignore her, but clearly not feeling well.

Converting the image to a low key monochrome filter really fit the image, taking away their faces, leaving a black gap of it, like a ghost face, as we have all become like ghosts in this country.

Many politicians want to prohibit begging, so I really encourage street photographers to get out to the streets documenting the beggars in the Norwegian society. Especially I hope you can shoot a lot of images like the one above, showing the poor and filthy beggars in contrast to Norwegian selfishness, mindless consumerism and indifference.

So fellow street photographers, get to the streets and start working! This might be the last summer we can document beggars of the Norwegian streetscape!

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Livets knallharde kontraster....

Tror mange har godt av og bli minnet på at ikke alle har det like bra, og mange faller utenfor det såkalt vellykkede A4 livet, og blir sett ned på, uten at vi tar oss bryet med å tenke på grunner til at livet er slik for disse.

Møter selv mange av disse menneskene som ikke har mestret hverdagene eller har manglet forutsetningene for å leve innenfor "normalen". Har fått mange historier presentert gatelangs, noe som har gjort min forståelse av deres hverdag bedre, og øynene opp for at det er et menneske bak enhver fasade.

Likte måten du presenterer dette på, med et virkningsfull uttrykk. Teksten er en påminnelse til oss alle, og jeg hiver meg lett på din oppfordring om å dokumentere gatelivet, på godt og vondt. - Pål M. Smørvik

Dette bildet viser virkelig kapitalismens kontraster på gateplan. Den utslåtte tiggersken og dama som ikke føler seg vel og ser bort.

Liker det svart/hvite uttrykket som forsterker kontrasten.

Dette inspirerer til dokumentasjon av livets kontraster! - Bjørn Østby