NYCOMG | The Day After

The day after the workshop was over, I went off in search of the CVS and somehow overshot my goal. Which is how I met Darnell, who was working construction and playing some sort of multiplayer iPhone game. His anonymous friends busted up when they learned his real name. But now I’m not so sure I’m remembering it right. Maybe it was Tyrell, or Durrell. Could’ve been anything. We did a bunch of photos from several angles. I like this one where he looks like he’s singing, and maybe he WAS singing. Later that same day, I encountered Charles, a photographer selling prints on the corner by the drugstore. Or was it the day before? The day after? Charles had stories to tell, of photographing the well known characters of New York City. De Niro. Trump. Charles was intimidated by no one. He’s got a disarming personality and gets you to do what he wants, like having a couple of Harlem Globetrotters, one on each side of Mr Trump (he was Mr Trump in those days), spinning a basketball on his finger. That’s what you call a money shot.

Further on up the road, a group of kids making selfies. They were about to wrap when I showed up and asked them to do it again. And so they did. Because the great thing about selfies is that since they’re already staged, you can stage them again, or direct them if you want, and no matter what you do, they still look staged. And years from now, when everyone’s on to other things, we’ll look at all those selfies and laugh at how silly we looked, and how fun it was, and how bright those colors were, even way back then, before true color was invented.