About Humane Exposures

In the early 1990s, commercial photographer Susan Madden Lankford began photographing the homeless men and women ever present on the streets around her downtown San Diego work loft. Before long, she was interviewing them, getting to know them, and writing about what she saw.

Lankford became deeply aware of the cycles in the lives of society’s disenfranchised—on and off drugs, in and out of jail, on and off the streets—and the patterns of neglect and abuse that cycle through generations.

HUMANE EXPOSURES strives to trigger public awareness of the needs and challenges of at-risk members of our society, and to help break the cycle. The corporation has two primary arms, with intertwining goals.

HUMANE EXPOSURES PUBLISHING creates compelling books that shine revealing light on homelessness, incarceration, and the legacy of childhood neglect.

HUMANE SMARTS is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to jump-starting the futures of young people committed into or affected by the criminal justice system.

About Susan Madden Lankford

Lankford grew up in the Midwest and holds a BS degree from the University of Nebraska. She has attended the prestigious Ansel Adams workshop and studied under such photographic masters as Roy DeCarava and Richard Misrach. Before turning her attention to social issues, Lankford worked as a wildlife photographer and portrait photographer. The parents of three adult daughters, Susan and her husband live in San Diego.

Mission Statement

Humane Exposures is a socially driven project geared toward public awareness and education about the graphic needs and frail values of a society at risk. Humane Exposures takes a penetrating look at society's disenfranchised and castaways—the denizens of our streets and the homeless, and the emotionally and physically incarcerated—by looking at the underlying social issues leading up to the incarceration of women, children in foster care, and youths in juvenile hall caught up in the cycle of institutionalization.