michaelthomasphoto

[michaelthomasphoto]

Aaryn immediately struck me as approachable and self-reflective. I walked up with a question to what was on his mind. 

“I need to find my wife. I haven’t seen her for a week,” he said. “Before she left she told me that if we don’t see each other for three weeks then she thinks we should date other people.”

He sat quietly by himself, his back to a concrete post. A thin crowd mingled past towards the saturday open air market on the next block. 

As we talked a man walked up and handed him a pamphlet for the Knights of Columbus—  a “modern knights” doing the will of God kind of thing. 

“Everyone needs a little Jesus in their life— or something,” Aaryn said. With his thumb he pointed to an image on the pamphlet depicting a knight in full plate on horseback. “I’ve seen armor like that. I used to joust and do fencing.” I asked him where and he said, “In a castle. In England. I lived there for a while. It was wild.”

I asked him if that is what he was most proud of.  “No,” he said, “I was special ops in the military. I went on diplomatic missions to Yemen. That is what I am most proud of.”

Approaching someone on the street to photograph them is to learn to read body language and a person’s openness.  It is not uncommon that the downtrodden are the most open and trusting. This is what I love about people like Aaryn. All the titles and self-importance has been stripped away and just a human remians. There is a kindness I find there, like in the way that those with the least often give the most.