w00t w00t booyah

I think it's the relating to the situation that's key. I can't look at, say, the black and white photo on the homepage there, and put myself in those people's shoes. Too obviously different. But I can look at those possessions, and be struck by how it would be to own that, and only that. A quantity of stuff smaller, and of massively less value, that the tiny sub-section of my belongings I take out of the house in my bag every day. You also get subtler hints of what these people's lives might be like, bypassing any reaction of revulsion - instead of sores around a mouth, you get three tubes of glue; instead of a thuggish demeanour, you get a pair of scissors, a hammer. Of course there might be innocent reasons for the glue, scissors and hammer, but there are innocent reasons for having sores or looking like a thug.