I first learned of the work of Noah Addis after the HHS! panel selected him as a Hot Shot in the Winter of 2006. He had submitted a series of abstract images dealing with issues of mass-consumption and technology, photographing the hazy clouds of light and amorphous energy that surround our modern day tools and the places so many of us go perpetually consume: shopping malls, factories and airports.

Untitled #1 (from Future Cities: Lima), 2010 by Noah Addis

In the time since then, Noah's traveled the world as a photojournalist and documentary photographer. His work has taken him to Africa and Iraq, into homes during times of tragedy, and on the news trail of scandals and terrorist attacks. His current project, Future Cities, which is informed by his documentary background, is a series of quiet portraits and macro and micro views of squatters in major cities around the world. They are studious ruminations on how people survive in these transformative spaces, and how cities have failed to adapt to their own rate of growth.

Of the project, he writes:

By photographing contemporary city dwellers as well as the built environment in which they live, I hope to gain a greater understanding of the issues facing these cities as they continue to evolve and grow....My current project, Future Cities, focuses on squatter communities and informal settlements within the world's major cities. According to United Nations estimates there are more than a billion squatters living today--one out of every six people on earth. This number is expected to double to two billion by 2030. And by the middle of the century there will be three billion squatters.

Untitled #2 (from Future Cities: Lima), 2010 by Noah Addis

Untitled #5 (from Future Cities: Lima), 2010 by Noah Addis

Addis photographs the multitudes who often go unseen by visitors or tourists, their shacks and homes built of the materials often discarded by others, far from the city center.The homes, and the makeshift spaces used for recreation, cooking, dining and sleeping are deeply entrenched into the existing environment. In Lima, this is the backdrop of arid mountains; in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the favelas Addis documents exist more evidently within city bounds. Plywood homes are squeezed between the giant rocks of a mountain, and propped up by piles of tires and rocks, each moved there one by one.

On his website, Noah writes more extensively about Future Cities, noting there are more than 400 urban areas in the world with over a million inhabitants—and many of them have failed to acknowledge the need for, and implement, the infrastructure to support their growing populations. Industrial jobs have moved out of cities and the influx of migrants who arrive in these places every day are faced with few options, than to sleep where they can with the little they have. As a result, migrants who initially headed to cities in search for brighter futures, end up in crowded, crime-ridden and impoverished communities, making just enough in low-wage just to survive. Their futures are uncertain and the homes that were once a transitional solution necessarily evolve into places of greater permanence.

You can see more images from Future Cities on Noah's website.