(from photography) by Stuart Shils

(Source: stuartshils.com)

(from Things From Home) by Greg Segal

I began with a question: If you were allowed to keep only those items that would fit in one suitcase, what would you choose? We may think of our cherished possessions when we imagine our houses going up in flames, but for those with no homes, this is a critical question. With my camera, I sought out the homeless and asked what possessions they valued most.

Their answers suggested past identities and entanglements that would have been hard to guess: a cross, family photos, a bell, a toy car, underwear, lipstick, a figurine of the Virgin Mary, a college diploma, a dog, a doll. But if our identities are shaped by what we possess, what happens to those who have nothing? For these homeless, material posessions are a humanizing force.

(Source: greggsegal.com)

(from Echo Park) by Gregg Segal

Vince Beiser:

Echo Park is one of Los Angeles’ oldest and most intriguing neighborhoods, a down-market collage of small dance clubs and family-run restaurants, low-key hipster hangouts and storefront tarot card readers. Its grocery stores sell menudo mix alongside pickled lotus stalks. Its Methodist Church offers services in four languages.

By all appearances, the early stages of the classic cycle of urban gentrification have begun: pioneering artists and young urbanites move into a low-rent ethnic neighborhood and make it interesting and appealing for higher-end yuppies, who drive the prices up and earlier inhabitants out until the area loses its distinct character. … rent and housing prices are shooting up, forcing some longtime residents to move. And the neighborhood has acquired the ultimate symbol of gentrification: its first Starbucks.

Here’s a look at Echo Park and nearby streets before they fade to hip.