hey michael,

thanks for the response. i am not sure if i meant my comment to be an outright critique. just an initial response. and i always think these kinds of things--whether looking at the work of walker evans or sebastiao salgado or an anthropologist. as someone who has been involved in photography for a long time, photographs of people always get me asking a bunch of questions like this. especially in relation to anthropology. i am never quite sure what to do with them, what to expect, or what i think--and i have plenty of my own. so the response was as much for me to keep thinking about as for you. cameras are quite powerful--in many ways. there were days when i used to carry a camera everywhere i went, but somehow that was a little draining, always turning the world into photographs. the same kind of thing can happen with anthropology i suppose. i have taken plenty of photographs in an anthropological context, but i am always ambivalent about them after.

anyway, thanks again for the response. by the way, the stories and background that you posted on my page added a great deal to the photographs for me. there is always something more there, and context is key to understanding at least some of the meanings of photographs. still, there are always other meanings behind them, especially for the person on the other side of the lens.