JM Simpson is a documentary photographer who lives in Lacey, Washington. A retired history instructor, he has spent the past four years photographing people who live without housing, arguing through his pictures that they deserve the basic right to a home.
His photo essay Documentary Photography and Philosophy grew from a comment by philosopher Paul Schofield after a presentation at Amherst College’s Center for Humanistic Inquiry. It links his photographs with the philosophical idea of recognition. He talks with and listens to people in Tacoma, Seattle, Boston and San Francisco before asking to photograph them, and he will not take a picture that would embarrass or humiliate the person in it.
He does not keep a website. As he puts it, his photographs “are not for display like something in a store window; rather, they are to be part of respected publications and platforms that help move the needle on helping men, women and children who lack housing.”
Portrait © Freddy Monares
