Push the button
About two weeks ago, or so, my friend Monika Lightstone did a photography shoot with me in my neighborhood of Eagle Rock, in Los Angeles.
This is one of my favorite shots from that photoshoot.
It's about 4 blocks from where I live. It's one of those huge intersections where they have blinking crosswalk units to help people not get hit by cars in the dead of night. Monica was really digging the way the blinking crosswalk activity light (not pictured in this shot) looked above my head when I would push the crosswalk button (pictured in this shot). So, she kept having me push the button—repeatedly—non-stop.
Traffic would stop.
Traffic wouldn't see anyone crossing the street. They would just see some ass hat stooped in front of the botton (pictured above). They honked their horns.
I would push the button again, because Monika instructed me to do so.
More cars stop. More cars honk their horns—a few even lay into his/her horn like a New York City resident resolutely trying to get a point across: "HEY DICKHEAD, STOP PUSHING THE FUCKIN' BUTTON."
Monica asks me to push the button again.
I politely suggest that I don't push the button again, because it seems to be agitating the traffic around me. She tells me that she's trying to get a cool shot, and begs me to push the button one more time.
I push the button.
Maybe I really will do anything in the name of art (I really love this shot).