This week’s batch of photos is the result of a few different trips to this neighborhood. One of these visits including watching a parade, making it more likely that people would be in the photos. During warm months, when we go out, it tends to be early in the day, before walking around for hours will cause heat stroke.
Still, when we traveled on an early Sunday morning recently, we still saw many residents out on their porches and in their yards.
As mentioned before, it feels invasive and wrong to photograph people while they are on their own property, and the posed photo feels artificial, so we generally step away from that. In a world of selfies and excessive filters, we aim to do something a little different.
Some of the encounters with residents and visitors who are not pictured here can be described.
A man standing on Homestead Avenue, chatting with various passersby, asked about the bicycle. We stopped momentarily to talk and noticed he was eating a mango. I was awestruck at his technique until I realized that in his other hand was a knife. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to eat a mango.
On parade day, a young boy was struggling to open an umbrella. It was blazing hot and there are not many shade trees along the route. After some miming from across a parking lot, I helped him and he asked me about my camera. Little kids love cameras. We ended our brief conversation and I walked a little ways away to find something like shade near a church. The boy’s aunt told him to go hold the umbrella over my head, which made for great comedy, watching him standing on tiptoes to do this. After indulging this for a few seconds, I walked with him to talk with the rest of his family (and hold the umbrella over him, since I was taller than someone for a change) about the parade. They were excited about it, having come in from a neighboring town. There was hoping and praying that everyone acted sensibly, but the aunt said that people need to come out in spite of all the violence. If any disputes or violence occurred during last week’s parade, I never heard about them.
