Leica M Monochrom: best pics

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I went to San Francisco on the day of the Pride parade this year. As has been my custom, interrupted by a couple of years of pandemic, I arrived early and walked Market Street from Civic Center to 2nd and back. I stopped and talked to vendors, to people getting ready to watch the Pride parade ... and I watched, I looked. I sometimes made a photograph.

Most everyone was wandering to their destinations, friends at their sides, coffee and snacks in their hands. Eager to see the parade begin, bright and chipper, looking towards the enjoyment of the morning. Police and security people were doing their things.

And then this street person—wrapped in a U-Haul blanket, unbathed, just awakened—strode awkwardly down the street looking for...?... Everyone gave him a wide berth. He was confused, he was tired, he was hungry. He looked from face to face, blurrily, hoping for...?... something, and continued to walk on.

There was something proud, and sad, in his walk. He was not old; in another time and place he might have been another handsome guy in his thirties. He held to a dignity in his plight, in his exhaustion and search for succor: it was as if he had been dropped into this place from afar, from another time, and could not relate to sights and sounds which pummeled his senses.

Passing MK - San Francisco 2022
Leica M10 Monochrom + Summilux 35mm f/1.4
ISO 160 @ f/8 @ 1/60
Orange filter​


I saw him again later as I walked the other direction. I'd bought a small sandwich and a bottle of water. He had withdrawn and collapsed into a doorway, now almost invisible to the passing parade goers, spent and sleeping on the hard sidewalk. I left the food and water by his side, and hoped it was was still there when he woke. I was no longer hungry.

I watched the parade begin with cheers and applause bursting all around me, waved at some of the motorcyclists as they passed, then headed home on the train.

He stays in my memories of that morning even now. And I ask myself: Is what I perceived real? Or just another illusion of my own cosmic consciousness?

G
 
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