Do Your Thang

I happened one evening to come across a documentary about a New York photographer who was likely over sixty who rode his bike all over New York taking pictures.  His focus was on street fashion, what he felt were interestingly dressed women and men in the street.  At one time the editor of Vogue stated that he would take a picture of a woman in the street and the following year what she was wearing became vogue.  There were times when he would be invited to parties just because his pictures were published so frequently that actors and famous folks would invite him to their parties.  He rarely attended any of the parties (Cunningham was his last name) because he was completely not interested in the recognition or fame and found the parties to be boring and not something that benefitted his work.  All he wanted to do was take the pictures and talk about fashion.  He was also a gay man in an era when it was completely unacceptable.  There was not so much as a mention of any lover or love interest.

Here was a man who followed his dream on a bike of all things.  He stated that he'd had many bikes stolen in New York during his career as a photographer, at times receiving a bike as a gift from his friends who knew he would lose many bikes along the way.  This man was surely one who stepped so out of the box as to do what he wanted to do and do it his way.  At one point in his life they finally sold the building he'd lived in almost all his adult life and the absolutely courageous way he addressed it and the move from his studio where he had all his work.  Here was a man who had the guts to do what he wanted to do just because he wanted to do it when he wanted to do it whether he made money or not.  He was a man inside his full potential and did not care whether others thought so or not.  He was a man who honored himself and loved riding his bike all over New York and taking pictures, often eating fast food at any dive along the way when he could have been eating high cuisine at all these parties he was invited to where there would have been the best of food.  I don't recall if he is dead but I have to assume that he is.  This man single handedly documented fashion as he saw it and was in his joy more often than not.

I love photography and I feel like it has indeed documented history in a manner that I can consume it.  People like him documented history and he in specific documented fashion.  How life would be if all of us did what we wanted to do uneffected by money and in fact not concerned about it like he was.  It seems unbelievable that one man could be so sure of what he wanted in life and how he would live it in spite of what others felt, especially those who thought him silly for not allowing stars to make him into a star.  How wonderful it would be to live life like that.  Cunningham did not want that kind of attention.  How wonderful to live a life so free.

whenever I see documentaries about rebels like him who think so outside the box I smile inside and feel like there is hope for all of us to do the same.  My dreamy side wishes that not one person would have to work a job that they hate where they are underpaid and treated poorly.  It gives me that hope that everyone can do what they feel most kin to their heart and not be sad, angry or frustrated in a job where they had to be there at nine am every day and when they are not they are berated.  I think of Cunningham as a beautiful soul who helped others and continues to help others understand their dream and that their spirit is what matters most.