Today, Twitter doesn’t suck.

Twitter sucks, Twitter’s useless.

So goes the conventional wisdom of people who say, um, “Twitter sucks, Twitter’s useless.” Sometimes they’re right. When I first started on it, the only criteria I used to follow someone was if they wrote something funny, cool or informative; maybe they put up a link to something useful too. You eventually figure this out within 5-10 updates of what someone writes.

Lately though, the next big thing has turned into a lot of repetitious noise, making it hard to find something that stands out. Still, it’s because of Twitter that I came across two photographers worth mentioning, one of which is the subject of this post.

An update on Twitter caught my eye today because I saw the word ‘amazed.’ (Actual word was ‘speechless’ but amazed makes the point better.) Now, regular users know that when someone on Twitter says something like that, it’s usually in reference to a salad they just ate or a tip on optimizing office workflow or their servers. (Don’t geeks always think everything’s “amazing?”) Thing is, read that enough times from people you follow and you become immune. But from new followers or others, you notice.

“She is Katia: http://iamkatia.blogspot.com/ And I am speechless.”

After clicking the link and going through the images found there, I was reminded how one discovery can make up for a lot of the uselessness on Twitter. I can put up with SEO tips on a Saturday night at 1:00 AM just because links like that redeem the mundane.

Katia Roberts works with some of the many homeless street children and teens of Seattle, hanging among them, shooting as well as keeping tabs on them. Regardless of your views on the issue of homelessness, whether you blame them or the system for their circumstances, the stories accompanying these stunning images cut through any of that.

The image above for example, seems poignant enough, until you hear the story about life on the streets from Annie McQuade in reference to someone actually caring enough to give her free food:

“The moment before his mercy is so different from the moment after.”

I wish I could naturally write like that, but truth like this is born out of experiences I just haven’t had. According to Annie, she’s trying to pull her stories together for a future book. (Helluva way to research it.)

Last time I saw something this compelling was Phillip Toledano’s portrait of his dad. Katia’s work is no less dramatic. She has several blogs where she keeps images, all worth checking out. The story above is found here. Her regular blog is iamkatia, as well as another with more images.

Still, so much of Katia’s story seems compelling.

According to her profile, her regular job is in HR, but when I see that she had trouble raising even a few hundred dollars to help feed the people in the pics, I’m guessing HR doesn’t pay enough.

I then looked through all of the images and read her accompanying writings, things like shop owners wanting the “eyesores” removed from view, (eyesores in this case being a dysphemism for homeless teens), then wondered further why some agency out there hasn’t hired her to shoot and/or write, because her work, her stories, are good. (Maybe they have, I don’t know. If not, email her and give her some work.)

And if you’re on the fence about Twitter and haven’t signed up yet for whatever reason, all I can say is that today, it didn’t suck.