In her apartment one day, the walls were sweating from the pots of boiling water she uses to heat the place. "I don't make enough to support my children the way I want to," she said amid the steam. So she took a photo of one week's paycheck: $111.20.
Having small money and a limited role to play on the planet is something Ashley Ortiz, 23, also understands. A waitress with a 2-year-old son, Ortiz shot a photo of a vial of "wet" that her son had picked up on a playground.
"It smelled like mint and dead people," she said of the street drug, which combines marijuana and embalming fluid. "I can't deal with having no good place for my son. But the rest of the world needs us bottom feeders.
"Who do you get to step on if not me?"
It's not the way she or the other Witnesses women want it. Most work to improve their lives, but the odds are long. So they hope something comes from their project.
"These cameras have allowed a lot of families to let the outside world in their lives," Gaines said. "I pray it's not for nothing."
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