Freegans in New York

It is certainly not the most imaginative idea I ever had for a photo assignment, but I had very little time to make this happen so I chose a safe bet: freegans. I had attended several times last August and September various freegan dinners, I like what they are trying to do, so I chose to follow a group on a "trash tour" last week.
I was surprised to see how diverse the crowd was. We were about 20: from the PhD student to the young mother to the 50- something hippy teacher to the Chinese girl who walks everywhere...
Some people didn't want to be photographed. I am always kind of pissed off when that happens. I tell them I am a student and that the pictures won't be published, but they don't care, they just don't want to. It would be okay had they expressed genuine concern for their job (what if somebody at work sees in the paper that a colleague goes dumpster-diving at night). But they are not going to be published! Oh well...I suspect some people do that just for fun and piss me off :-)
Then the following night was the "feast": a 3-hour cooking process, at one of the volunteer's apartment, using all the food that was picked up the night before. Everybody comes at 5 or 6pm and helps decide what recipe to do, peel the vegetables and cook the different dishes. We got to eat vegetable soup, chili, baked aubergines, a giant salade, freshly-squeezed fruit juice, fruit salad, and bread...It was really good.
Pretty much the same crowd showed up as the day before, including the young mother with her boyfriend. They brought their adorable little girl. And while the mother was busy eating and chatting, the father was shamelessly flirting with me. Ah!