"Today's my birthday," he said to Dakota. "I don't want money. I don't want food. I just want you to take my picture."
And so Dakota did. The pathos in his eyes. The pain. The suffering. The silent witness to life ont he streets. Even now,
in another time and place, his sadness still touches us. Moves us.
Falcon remembers sitting in the studio in Brooklyn the evening of the day of the same Dakota photographed "Homer"
aswe call him. "Oh my," he said when he realized what he saw. Dakota and JD stood over his shoulder silently
witnessing what Falcon's discovery.
The photograph, on the facing page, is called "It isn't you. It's me."
Falcon had caught a couple breaking up in the park. The look in her face, the mirror of their bodies. The look
in his eyes........
Seeing the world again, for the first time, is opening oneself to countless moments like these that fill the
world around us every moment of every day. We need only open our eyes to see. We need only open our hearts to feel,
to strip away the veneer that hardness of life has drapped upon us.
"Scenes from the Life of a City" is dedicated to letting those moments that are before our eyes speak to us.
Framed by New York City, from West 4th Street to Canal, from the river to the ocean, lives are lived everyday
against the backdrop of steel, concrete, asphalt, and anonymity. And yet, in every way, every moment of every day
is filled with laughter, love, sadness, tragedy......... and all those things that make us most human.
