While leaving Petco with fresh supplies for Sybil (the cat), I crossed into Union Square. Two men caught my eye in the crowd of the farmers market. One was a junky, apparently smacked out of his mind and barely standing. The ice cream cone in his hand melting down his hand was as big a mess as the ice cream smeared across the scruff of his unkempt face. The other man held a cell phone, pointing its lens up toward the face of the junky who was completely unaware of the camera or much else.
A brief flash of thought paralyzed me. Was this art? Or was it someone, seeing someone in distress capturing the image for his own amusement? Concluding it was the latter, I reached for my own phone, seeking to take a picture of the photographer. "Shame the shamer," I thought. My phone was in my canvas bag, under the cat supplies and unreachable. My potential subject was lost to me in the crowd.
Photo via New York Social Diary
