Cultural Exploration

Vincent smoking a cigarette

Jerry has a bad attitude--or at least that is what Vincent told me. Vincent and Jerry are pan handlers, you can find both of them sitting on opposing corners in the the country club plaza, rain or shine. Vincent said he has been doing this for the last two years and owns the best spot on the plaza. He says when the other pan handlers see him coming they know to get out of his spot. The de facto king of the pan handlers, I asked? Vincent just smiled.

This cultural expedition I was on was set into motion by a Norwegian , Hanna, who is coming to America for, "cultural exploration", as she wrote on her facebook status. The next day after I had read her update I had a client meeting on the plaza where I met a wonderfully fun couple who are to be married in June. After finishing up with them I started wandering the plaza, with cultural exploration in mind. I wanted to meet interesting people and photograph them, almost as if I was visiting a different country.

The first potential subject I met was George, he was a 101st airborne veteran that was sitting in an automatic wheel chair and handing out American flags. I spent about 20 minutes listening to him tell me about jumping out of air planes and working a 50mm gun on Huey helicopters. It wasn't long until he was showing me his pair of 10" long scares that ran up his legs, "I am full of titanium", he was practically boosting by this point. I quickly realized that George was pretty savvy at his job, he would print out little American flags, attach them to a toothpick and hand them out to kids which would almost invariably result in the parents dropping a few dollars in the fishing net George had attached to his wheel chair. After my initial success with George I met several more interesting people on the plaza including Ria @ http://ArenbyPhotography.com, and David @ http://LifeUncommonPhotography.com both of whom do fantastic lightstyle/photojournalism work.


In the evening I switched from the plaza to the KC Power & Light district. No pan handlers there, but a cute public safety officer by the name of Gale made for a pleasant change and interesting conversation. While Gale was directing cars and giving directions I was using the beautiful 630pm light to make a photograph.

Bobby was the last interesting character that I met Sunday evening. I didn't get the chance to learn much about him over a hot dog with extra relish but he did let me take his picture.

The most fascinating thing about travel to me is taking the time to meet and learn about other people and the culture that formed them. I think people are fascinating and my love for compelling portraiture stems from this fascination with people and their stories. The Facebook status update by Hanna made me look at this in a different way. Why do I have to travel somewhere else to have a new experience or learn about interesting people? The truth is you don't, we are surrounded by people that have lived fascinating lives and would relish the opportunity to have someone listen and tell their story. Most of the time they try to hide it but you can tell they are enjoying every bit of the attention.