It was Paris and every day I walked its streets searching, camera in hand. The problem was that I wasn’t quite sure of what it was that I was searching for. I Passed by beautiful monuments, romantic scenes, and bustling streets with hoards of tourists that presented themselves but they didn’t stop me nor attracted my camera.

Then by the great Pompidou Museum, a marvelous piece of architecture, a small crowd gathered to watch a man feeding pigeons…a whole lot of them. I had to add my camera to to the others and the myriad of Iphone snappers, some selfi ” me in Paris” shooters and Instagram feeders and as I started to shoot, a woman said to me, ” isn’t that sad? Poor man”  and walked off shaking her head. I didn’t respond, just kept shooting as I started to close the gap between him and me.

” The Pigeon Man “

He didn’t respond to me as well. He continued to reach into his bag as he gathered more friends. Looking down onto my screen, my favorite way of shooting, became a moment when all else seemed to fade away and only he, I, and this moment existed, time faded away. Had it not been for him running out of food, I would have continued on all day.

Once done, we both left the scene, the play was over and as I handed him some money I said ” this to feed the birds ”  Later I learned that he would go around to the restaurants every day where they would give him left over bread to help him do just that.

Photographers can tell you that sometimes there’s a moment where time seems to stand still, a photographic space where only subject and you exist… photographic Zen. In that moment you stand alone, unaffected by all else around you, zoned into what appears in your frame, you become like a matador coming face to face with the bull, as the cheering noise of the crowd and its background fades away, in the moment of truth.

You forget what you were searching for…you simply found it.

I later thought back to what that woman said. She saw this event as sad, pitying this man as she walked on. She couldn’t see past what was at hand, no doubt like many others who saw a raggedy old man on the street. I, in turn, felt sad for her, she had eyes but couldn’t see, maybe that’s what’s wrong with this world.

He had found what he searched for, a meaning and purpose and on that day I felt that I had found mine as well. Sometimes I think that photography isn’t so much about the image that’s in your camera but the experience that’s in your head and looking back at your photographs they become its reminders.

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