All Tuned Out

My original intention was to simply take photos of the splendid color combination of the red and blue.

However, after a second look at this set I noticed a distinct pattern amongst the pedestrians—almost all of them we’re "tuned out."

Either they were on the cell phone chatting away, in their own little world contemplating the day, or shut out from the cacophony about them with their headphones on and iPod all plugged in.

It was just another reason why it is sometimes so easy to take photos of strangers in the city, because they are quite oblivious or indifferent to everything around them.

Life in the fast lane requires one to focus on the goal, i.e. get to work or get home "on time." So, most people miss a lot of things, beautiful, wonderful things and perspectives on the life that surrounds them. And when they do notice you taking their photo, half the time they just shrug it off as the quaint behavior of a tourist or some artsy-fartsy fellow from the Village.

In sum, quite often the people of New York are either too busy, too preoccupied, too paranoid or simply too hurried to notice you.

Or, as our reputation would have it, we just don’t give a ...

*

hawk commented that he saw irony in the juxtaposition of rubbish to pedestrians.

i too see irony, and it is in how amazing the mundane really is. every morning and afternoon as i walk to and from port authority (for the unfamiliar, that's the grand bus terminal here in NYC) or work, i challenge myself to find more fotos. sometimes it takes a couple of blocks, but most of the time there's always something as soon as i step outside the building.

this particular morning however proved rather dry initially. the humidity seems to damper my senses, as well as the vibrancy of the environment in some strange way. i think the thick air blocks the radiance of light and thus color of everything around me, so that everything seems unusually dull.

anyway, i was at a loss and i was becoming a little desperate (if not, depressed. because for a moment i thought, "maybe this is the end...maybe my visual powers are waning"). i had walked four or five blocks and had seen nothing that caught my eye. but then, gleaming askance from where i was going, i saw this great combination of rectangles of red and blue.

it was across the street however and the morning rush hour was between me and my subjects to be, so i waited patiently, repressing the worries that i would be late to work by saying to myself "it will be worth it."

and now, i feel it was. because out of garbage, once again, arose a phoenix of utter beauty for me, in more way then one.

so i guess irony not only lies in the discovery of the extraordinary in the all-too-ordinary, but also in the cross section where serendipity meets chance, that random moment of when you least expect it...

in the beginning .00 daily archives

l.m