The two images below were captured during the summer of 2010. They were taken on opposite ends of the Manhattan Bridge bike path. The one on the left is on the Brooklyn side and the one on the right is on the Manhattan side.
They're bookends. Physically, there's barely a mile between these two points on a map. Between the two subjects, however, the distance between their states of mind could not be farther apart. Both are deeply into their own heads. On the left we have troubled contemplation, On the right, perfect meditation. I think of these two men as allegorical sentries and love the way these two pictures talk to one another about journey and place, about crossings and humanity. The guy meditating on the left is still, yet his mind is actively pursuing a higher state. Over in Brooklyn, the body language says agitation, but in this guy's head, there's dead calm and perhaps despair. Then there's the backdrop. In Brooklyn, the Jehovah's Witness headquarters Watchtower Building, looms over the sad gentleman. In Manhattan, meditation guy is watched over by a benign piece of smiley face graffiti.
I never saw the Brooklyn sentry again, but I encountered Meditation Guy (as I ended up calling him) all that summer. I actually took a whole series of Meditation Guy. Check it out. Watch the progression of Meditation Guy and the world around him. In a way, this set is the closest I've come to the Tom Phillips piece I mentioned in the last post. Everything changes — billboards, graffiti, the weather. Although he's the most constant thing in the set, even Meditation Guy changes it up occasionally.
When summer ended, so did Meditation Guy's morning ritual. I haven't seen him since that summer. I hope both gentlemen are out there doing well.
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