What do poor people look like?

There's an interesting article called Perspectives of Poverty by Duncan McNicholl. This was picked up by Aid Watch blog by Bill Easterly, which I find to be always interesting.

For this article, he asked two of his friends to dress up in a "poor way" and then "dress to kill". You can see the results in the above link. His point is underscored by one of the participants, "NGOs come to the village here to take pictures of people. At church, at the market, on the road, at meetings. Only people who are dressed poorly."

I am guilty of this. I try to take pictures of people who are different than me. And also I just don't find certain people interesting enough to be photographed, people with tee-shirts, sunglasses, as such. So, inevitably, my pictures capture a lot of people in their traditional garb.

So I guess I am also contributing to the myth of the look of the poor people. It's kinda like porn, hard to explain what it is, but I know it when I see it.