"Through A Blue Lens" documents a year of life and death on the street and behind tenement walls. A striking aspect of the film is not only the horror of drug abuse but the story of how the interaction between the police and the people who are living with complex substance abuse and mental health diagnosis's , with the camera as a catalyst, actually changed the people involved. The cops became more sympathetic to the people on the street and their complex barriers to care , in having friendship extended to them by the police and film makers, developed self-esteem and, in some cases, actually were able to move towards recovery.