Halloween is approaching fast, but I encountered a ghost of my own making today. I must confess my sins, I took this image in a strange way, and yet it wasn't so strange, but it stuck with me. Something I will carry with me into the future. I saw this man pass by once, and then again, I was trying to photograph a pigeon. O.k. so I was desperate. As I was walking back to the office, I approached the man one more time. He had stopped to make a phone call. The thing that struck me most about him was that he looked like Johnny Depp, only down on his luck. He was wearing makeup, that looked pretty good. I wondered if he wore it all the time. As I walked by I took this image. He turned and said "all you had to do is ask, I would have looked into the camera." Yes... at first I thought, no.. that's not what I want. But then I thought, yes that is what I wanted. And I felt bad, in a way that I rarely feel. I felt like I had taken something that didn't belong to me.
Yesterday, I took pictures of those silly boys with their skateboards and they got a little huffy saying, "hey you can't do that." I was working (sort of) yesterday, and hey... yes I can.
But today, even though I am working, and was on a lunch break, I am wishing I didn't take the picture of my pirate the way that I did. I think it's good to re-examine every now and then how and why we take pictures. I know that I will be thinking of this and hopefully learning something from it.
Funny how one man on the street, can bring such focus on responsibility. I wish I could find him again to ask him his story and all the other things I should have done. But all I know is that he was having a good day, because that's all I asked. I still have a long way to go down Brand Blvd.
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