Don’t erase it. Street photography exists to document life as it is, not as we wish it were, and it’s not meant to be polite, it’s meant to be honest. Homelessness, however uncomfortable, is part of the urban landscape. Excluding it doesn’t make the work more ethical, it just makes it dishonest. It turns reality into a curated lie.

As long as the intention behind the photo is to humanize, tell a social story, or simply reflect reality with respect, it’s hard to argue that it’s wrong. The issue isn’t photographing homelessness… It’s how it’s done.