Reading · Living Life Photographically

Lengthy article, may be truncated by your email server. Use “read in app” link if it happens.

Preempting my planned weekly Monday essay in favor of this unplanned idea I had last night (Saturday, August 22nd). Depending on where you live, work, and relax, it’s guesstimated that the average person can meet as many as 80,000 people in a lifetime (if lived 78+ years). Watch this video to delve deeper.

In your life up to now, how many people have you met?

Ain’t no way I’d figure it out for myself with any level of accuracy. It doesn’t negate the wonderment of the thought-experiment. “Met” meaning handshake greetings, offering and receiving spoken greetings, asking/giving directions, offering complements/getting a reply, etc. Ultimately engaging in more than non-verbal communication.

In reviewing the photographs, I’m remedying an urge to place them into a genre. So, in reverse chronological order going back to 1999, this, a small sampling of the many faces I’ve met along the way. The least that happened with each encounter was my asking if it’s okay to take their photograph.

Name: Unknown | Fort Greene/Brooklyn 1985 © Kenneth Nelson

↑ This photograph is deserving of a special mention. Other than my immediate family, he’s the first person to shout to me to take his photograph after noticing me carrying my camera. I haven’t seen him since. I’ve never showed it to him. We didn’t exchange contact info. I don’t even remember asking his name.