[Aeolun]

> They might smile and take your money as you photograph them, but your motivations are not mutual.

In my experience. Dealing with tourists like this generates mostly bemusement. They come into your life, spice it up for a little while, and then they disappear again. You don’t expect anything different.

I don’t think most people consider that they’ll be written about on some random travel blog later, nor that it will be in any way relevant to them.

> too poor to buy cans of Coke or Pokemon cards

It’s so weird to read this and then consider that some people do/did see this as the standard of being ‘not poor’. I’d have never considered myself poor, but every time I read stuff like this I wonder if others would have considered my family so.

[smoldesu]

I'm being pretty pessimistic here, I admit. At the same time though, documenting this stuff is a fragile task. I mostly oppose to the monetary incentive side of it, which creates unfair power dynamics between photographer who used to be a day trader for two decades and someone less-fortunate. Maybe other people are less sensitive to that, it's just my two cents.

> It’s so weird to read this and then consider that some people do/did see this as the standard of being ‘not poor’.

It's all relative. Both of my parents were working full-time and also addicts, which made the money pretty tight. There were definitely weeks where we lived paycheck-to-paycheck. Again though, none of this is to throw a personal pity party. My larger disagreement comes down to his methods.