Joakim Eskildsen - Below the Line - Time

This is one of my favorite series in a long time. Joakim Eskildsen traveled to New York, California, Louisiana, South Dakota and Georgia over seven months for Time magazine to photograph the growth in poverty in America. According to Time, more Americans live below the poverty line that at any time since the Census Bureau began collecting such data. Eskilden’s work here illustrates the striking diversity of Americans now living below poverty, showing the viewer how wide our continuing economic crisis has spread. The portraits are moving and emotive, portraying both the severity of the subjects’ situations and their underlying humanity.

I wasn’t well acquainted with Eskildsen’s work before, and ending up spending a while looking through his website. His book The Roma Journeys is available through Amazon; some of the pictures can be seen on his website.