McGaughey 1

Katie McGaughey
Aron Muci
English 101
4 December 2015
Project 3
Mary Ellen Mark was a unique photographer who excelled when analysing the fringes of
society. In her photo essay titled Streets of the Lost: Runaway Kids eke out a mean life in
Seattle featured in Life magazine in 1983 was an exemplary example of her best work. In
arguably one of the most livable cities in the United States, Seattle, Washington, Mary Ellen
Mark found homeless youth who were hardly surviving. The stark contrast of the advertised ideal
life Seattle has to offer and the harsh reality the youth live in is revealed in personal interviews
and photographs. Their struggles are worth sharing because even the best natured people, in this
case youth, slip through the cracks.
The images implemented in Mary Ellen Marks photo essay intimately show the daily
struggles of living on the streets, scavenging for food, battle with mental health, premature
drinking and drug use and daily violence as a result of their safety being constantly threatened.
The images are in the perspective of someone who is in the midst of the action. Mary Ellen Mark
positioned herself as one of the youth she was analysing. Although, she was in her early forties
when she took her camera to the streets of Seattle, she gained the trust of the youth. This was
crucial to achieving an inside look at their day-to-day lives. Mary Ellen Mark photographed
touchy moments of the youths lives - a fist fight between rival girls, a 17 year old boy obtaining
a gun for safety and a boy sleeping in a sewer.

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Human nature says we are inclined to feel bad for someone who is exploited with poor
circumstances. The pathetic qualities of the homeless youth Mary Ellen Mark analyzes provoke
this emotional response in the audience, embodied by the saddened looks on their faces; these
qualities are not unintentional. Her unique ability to dive into the depths of infringed society
allows the average person to see the intimate view of their lives that they normally would not
have the opportunity to experience.
In all of Mary Ellen Marks photographs, the main focus is her subjects, the homeless
youth. Each are addressed by name, making the relationship more personal in the eyes of the
audience. There are three mini sequences within the larger overarching essay. Mary Ellen Mark
follows a friends, Rat, 16 and Mike, 17, in the first sequence. The pictures depict the daily lives
of these two runaway teenages from California. They have lived on the same street for four years
surviving by begging for change, rummaging for food in trash bins behind restaurants to more
extreme measures like obtaining a fake ID to donate plasma to earn $30 a week and trading
prized possessions for a Colt .45 just to feel safe. The photos show how the boys survive on the
streets now but the accompanying essay shows how they got there. Both boys were excellent
students who got in trouble with the law by selling marijuana and were kicked out of the house
by their fathers.
The second pattern visually depicts the hardships Laurie, a 14-year-old girl, struggles
with in order to survive the streets. When promised $80 by a doctor in turn for sexually favors,
Laurie has done literally anything for a dollar. This is to fuel her drug addiction to
methylenedioxyamphetamine, typically referred to as meth or MDA. At $5 a capsule, MDA and
marijuana are the most popular drugs among kids on the streets of Seattle. The needles used to
administer the drugs are $1 but often reused up to 50 times over leading to transmission of blood

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diseases between users. These diseases can manifest within the homeless but also can pose a
threat on normal society. Sexually transmitted diseases commonly correlate with blood
transmitted diseases - both of which follow for life. Prostitution is common among youth who
reside on the street so the diseases they accumulate on the street can be injected into normal
society through these transactions.
The third and final sequence consists of 11 photos of a fight between two girls, Patti, age
16 and Erin, age 14. Learned violence at home does not hesitate to come to play in real life. Patti
and Erin both life in a hotel with Pattis boyfriend, 17, which they can afford from a deal worked
out where Patti sleeps with the hotel manager once a week. Both girls are victims of police
harassment where they are ticketed for petty crimes such as jaywalking, littering and loitering
every day. These fines add up to court charges and ultimately land youth into jail.
The three patterns Mary Ellen Mark implements in her photo essay easily depict the main
struggles people, youth and adults alike, deal with - shelter, hunger, violence, sex crimes, drugs
and the ultimate threat of jail. By personally examining the lifestyles of the homeless and fully
understanding the viewpoint they hold, Mary Ellen Mark makes an intimate connection between
the audience and the subjects. The importance of understanding the tribulations homeless people,
especially youth, deal with is evident. The health implications, social dilemmas and moral
standing the general public hold in contrast to the homeless population bares a huge burden on
society. This information being distributed to a community, such as Seattle, that is acclaimed for
being exceptionally livable is an eye-catching touch of irony. Distributing it to a population
blatantly ignorant of the problems evident on the streets is a wakeup call to authoritative figures
who can actually make a difference.

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Although, my photo essay was originally created for Lawrence, Kansas and the photo
essay by Mary Ellen Mark was focused on Seattle, homelessness is without a doubt a global
issue. Often homelessness anywhere is characterized as the scum of society with no future. We
can take from Mary Ellen Marks essay, along with the original text, there is an interconnected
web of people which lie within the homeless community. The system forces children to grow up
too fast, in the cases of Mary Ellen Marks subjects especially Mike and Rat. They all are put in
situations even adults would struggle in. This is where the lashing out - drug-use, crime, sexual
hate - all stem from.
Homeless has become such a hackneyed mundane topic often brought up in the news but
never unpacked, similar to gun control or terrorism as a whole. With a topic so all encompassing
and with so many just as worthy facets, outreach programs cannot always fulfill every need. In
many of the cases locally in Lawrence, Kansas as well as in Mary Ellen Marks depiction of
Seattle, Washington, food, water and shelter was in ample supply however things like coping and
drug treatments to sexual transmitted disease clinic to things as simple as contraceptives among
many other essentials were not available due to the patient's income, lack of insurance or social
standing. With a lack of these facilities, the population not only multiplies rapidly but also is
soiled in a lack of hope. A challenge for the greater world is to allow these facilities to be built. It
would work in a huge effect because as these facilities grew, the population would obviously
diminish. What do people want? A problem with a fast, solution that has visual representation.
Using what Mary Ellen Mark states in her photo essay, Streets of the Lost: Runaway
Kids eke out a mean life in Seattle, and what was previously stated, making a better life for the
homeless is not only an act of humanitarianism but a selfish act of public welfare. Using the tools
discussed above, as a society we can eke out a new life for these individuals with the sources we

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have in our bounty. It will be a work of many and a long time coming but for the overall good of
the public, it is something that simply needs to be done.
Using what Mary Ellen Mark states in her photo essay, Streets of the Lost: Runaway
Kids eke out a mean life in Seattle, and what was previously stated, making a better life for the
homeless is not only an act of humanitarianism but a selfish act of public welfare. Using the tools
discussed above, as a society we can eke out a new life for these individuals with the sources we
have in our bounty. It will be a work of many and a long time coming but for the overall good of
the public, it is something that simply needs to be done.