11:30 on a Tuesday Night in NY

It was 11:30 PM in New York and the lights were everywhere lighting up the faces as they walked past me. To me, it is street photography heaven. You then realize that it is only a Tuesday and people are out all hours of the night 24/7. 

“If London is a watercolor, New York is an oil painting.” ― Peter Shaffer

No one listening

No one was listening, but he was drumming away. "Prince the Mystic Drummer" was also singing and singing well. This was shot on a New York subway platform. 

Some of the key songs he focuses on included: Three Little Birds by Bob Marley, Night Nurse by Gregory Isaascs, Pimpers Paradise by Bob Marley and Sex Machine by James Brown - just to name a few. 

Legendary drummer Neil Peart of the group RUSH once stated, "To me, drum soloing is like doing a marathon and solving equations at the same time."

He valued being different

I met this man in New York. He valued being different in every way. 

"Trusting your individual uniqueness challenges you to lay yourself open." -James Broughton  (1913-1999). James Broughton was an American poet and filmmaker who was part of the San Francisco Renaissance, a precursor to the Beat poets.

Schizophrenia and Dispair

Schizophrenic and mad at the wind inside New York's Grand Central Station. I was able to speak with him through rants that meant nothing to me, but I am quite certain he thought he knew what or who he was mad at.

"Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair." - R. D. Laing

Despair: The complete loss or absence of hope.

Hello Hia

Hia was at the Buddhist Temple in Murfreesboro on a recent visit I had this past December. He was all smiles as he carefully worked on trim in one of the buildings on the property. He also worships at the temple. 

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." - Buddha

Learning Disability

“I sell the Faith Unity paper,” he told me with a smile while telling me he makes enough money to rent out a single room. The 45 year old said with a slight grin, “I’m from Michigan and I came to Nashville to get out of the cold.” I smiled, “Looks like the cold followed you here.”

We then started to talk about his life. “I dropped out of school in the 9th grade, my mind goes blank when I try to concentrate,” he said while looking down as if he were ashamed of it. “I have a learning disability,” he told me. I told him not to worry about it, lot’s of people have problems or issues that we don’t fully understand.

Tim Tebow once said of his learning disability, “It has nothing to do with how intelligent you are. You can be extremely bright and still have dyslexia. You just have to understand how you learn and how you process information. When you know that, you can overcome a lot of the obstacles that come with dyslexia. When you figure out how you learn, you can accomplish whatever you want.” 

Responsibility

“I’ve lived in Nashville my entire life,” he told me with a smile. Pointing down the street he said, “I grew up right over there, now I live there [pointing at a nearby house].” He was standing next to a large industrial barrel filled with burning brush, “We all help to clean this lot, the city owns it, but they don’t keep it looking nice.”

“There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.” - Denis Waitley

The Elderly on the Street

When I first saw him he was standing in the middle of the road talking to the air. Cars and trucks were stopped behind him honking their horns. No one even rolled down a window to ask him if he was okay. By the time I made it to him, he was on the sidewalk talking to himself.

I placed a hand on his shoulder only to feel his hard bones under his coat hiding his frail and undernourished body. His eyes were ice blue and his hair silver. He started to tell me about different movies he had seen and then changed the subject to talk about the ground coming up towards him.

“How old are you,” I asked with curiosity. “I am 70-years old,” he said in a whisper. “Do you have somewhere to stay tonight,” I asked with curiosity. He smiled and responded, “Don’t worry, I have a credit card to pay for somewhere to stay.”

I left him with a pair of new gloves and a green scarf. As I watched him walk away, I noticed he could barely walk. He looked at me and said that he has a bad knee. He then said, “See my hat [pulling it out of his pocket], a judge gave it to me. The judge was wearing it when he saw me and took it off his head and put it on my head.”

“It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.” - Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-1978)

The Violin

"When you play a violin piece, you are a storyteller, and you're telling a story." -Joshua Bell

Shot with a Fuji XT1 and a 35mm lens. 

Staying Warm in Detroit

“Staying warm,” he said as he laid on the cold Detroit concrete next to a manhole cover with steam pouring out. He would take his knit cap and hold it in the steam and then place it on his head. He followed this routine over and over again. Sweat was rolling down his forehead as he firmly placed the cap in place. 

"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief." - C. S. Lewis

Cold Outside

I shot this photo on a cold January day in Nashville. He was standing outside near the Nashville Rescue Mission.  Homeless. 

“Nothing burns like the cold.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

Garrett Aaron Abdula Presley

“I was a child actor,” he told me. "My name is different, it is Garrett Aaron Abdula Presley."

“I am homeless, but making it,” he said in a cheerful manner.

“The world of the homeless is a tough and interesting world.” - Paul Dano

I didn't do it

His face was dirty and his clothing well worn. He told me, “I use to live in Chattanooga, but I had to move. They accused me of starting a fire.” “Did you commit arson,” I asked. “What,” he said. “Did you start a fire,” I asked him again. “No, I didn’t do it,” he told me.

"There are no facts, only interpretations." - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), a German philosopher

I met Captain America

I met Captain America on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee. 

Where did you get the Captain America jacket, I asked with curiosity. “I got it at Walmart,” he told me with a small smile. He then proceeded to tell me that he was living on the street. I thought to myself, what better outfit than Captain America when you spend 24-hours a day on the street.

These are the people who need the help the most on the street, those who are simple in this complex world of make believe and illness.

“If you're gonna fight a war, you got to wear a uniform.” – Captain America

Shake the world in a gentle way

He was sitting in front of a closed and vacant building in downtown Nashville when I met him. “I’m 60,” he said with a drag of his cigarette.

I gave him a 7 man tent that was given to me by my friends Jessica and Rusty Bonds and he picked up the bag it was in curiously looking it over. He then handed it back to me telling me to give it to someone else in need. “This is too big for just me,” I smiled and told him to wait a minute. I then retrieved a two man tent and gave that to him. He smiled and said, “Thank you, I appreciate it.”

Thank you Jessica and Rusty Bonds.

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

Let's build people UP, not DOWN

He told me that people look down on him for being homeless, however he is working to climb out of his current situation. If you drove past him failing to talk, you would never know that he has goals and dreams to lead a better life.

“People see us drinking and they make judgement against us, they don’t understand,” he said while explaining that alcohol takes his mind off the situation at the end of the day. He was fully sober and not drinking when I spoke to him on Saturday. He talked about how others talk about him and the homeless you see in downtown Nashville on a regular basis without ever getting to know him.

“Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.” ― Socrates

He worked for the U.S. Post Office

“I’m 60,” he told me. “I was with the Post Office for 16 years, now I do odds and ends jobs,” he said as we talked. 

As I walked away he asked as if he knew me... "Is this gonna be in your book?" I responded, "I hope so. 

I retired from Chrysler

“I retired from Chrysler,” he told me. When he saw my camera he said, “But, I have scars on my face.” I smiled and said, “You look perfect.”

He lives within eyesight of the massive graveyard of downtown Detroit and can clearly see the Renaissance Center from the front door of his high rise apartment.

The 73-story Renaissance Center is the centerpiece of downtown Detroit. It is a group of seven interconnected skyscrapers owned by General Motors. It is GM’s world headquarters. The building was constructed in 1973 and later renovated in 2004.

Despite his view, he never worked for GM… only Chrysler.

He looked as if he were in pain

He walked as if he were in pain, his back bent forward and his hands in his pocket. A nearby security guard saw me photographing him and yelled, “He was a famous boxer!”

He looked back at her and then looked towards me and smiled, “They called me Speedy. I came up with Muhammad Ali.”

“I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick; I'm so mean I make medicine sick.” - Muhammad Ali