Phil and His Bird

 It was a while ago. All I had back then was a digital point and shoot and a very old, dinosaur, film SLR. I worked two jobs, went to school and had no time to think. Yet, I claimed to be THE PHOTOGRAPHER! Why in the world would I think so? Because, I believed, I could see something others couldn't and capture it on film. I had a sense of connection and belonging to humans and the world and believed, that I could open hearts one way or another through my photography.

 The assignment in my photo class at school was to shoot a series of images on some social issue. I had no doubts: I was going to photograph homeless people!

 My home country, Ukraine, considered to be very poor. Yet, growing up, I haven't seen homeless folks on the streets. There were some gypsies with their kids, occasionally begging for money, but that was pretty much it. I wanted to explore the subject and felt, that we didn't pay much attention to what was going on around us, and, certainly, were not helping nearly enough. I wanted to raise questions in minds and promote action and attention to the topic.

 Little did I know, that it was the most popular subject to pick. LOL! Instead of being unique, I was very typical. Who would think!

 I've been stubborn since I remembered myself, so when the teacher advised to change the subject matter and mentioned, that it's going to be very difficult to get a good grade, if I stick with it, I decided to do it anyway.

 For a few weekends I was strolling in East village, shooting, talking to people, looking at their faces, listening to their stories and feeding them. It became harder to fall asleep after those days. There was something newly discovered, I tried to learn to live with. There were stories of physical and mental illness, anger, abuse, aggression, hunger and hopelessness. I also learned a lot about fear of having my camera taken away from me.

 There were two opposite reaction people had. The first one was a hostile agression: they perceived my camera as a weapon, which possessed a huge threat to their relative and fragile safety. The second one was welcoming, warm kindness, spiced with a genuine friendliness. They were stoked that someone was willing to listen and hear them, and called me a "sweet angel." My accent, youth and mega old equipment really helped: it was easy to believe that I'm a foreign student and not any sort of reporter.

 It was quite a long beginning of a story about a guy, named Phil. I passed him by near Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego. He seemed to be an interesting character. I stopped by and modestly asked if he wouldn't mind to have his picture taken. He said nothing. And then I asked his permission to take some shots of his bird. He thought a little, asked me what it was for and which camera I used, and then agreed with a sense of pride and entitlement. I gave him all the gratitude and respect that I had.

 After that magic has happened: he started posing for me, in a complete silence, trying to make his bird do tricks and picking backgrounds on his own. I went along and did the very best I could. Let me tell you: a fully manual film camera with a fixed ISO under constantly changing light condition is not that easy to handle, especially while trying to focus on what's going on in front of its lens and connect with it.

 I kept saying: "Gosh, I wish I had a better camera, I just wish I had a better camera...." And he stopped, looked at me seriously and said: "It doesn't matter which camera you use as long as you have an eye for art and an open heart. If you are a genius painter, nobody cares about your brushes. You'll do well, don't worry about the camera."

 After that he decided to open up and share his purpose on Earth and sense of life. It was about feeding the birds. Not drinking or drugs, or science or reading books, or women or children, or politics. None of that. Just feeding the birds.

I got a fat "A" for the project in my class. The work has won two photo competitions for me. All of this is great but I need to share Phil's message with the world: "Do well, mean well and don't worry about the rest. Your tools don't matter as long as what you do comes from the bottom of your heart. And feed the birds!"