I’ve worked as a photojournalist for more than 35 years. During that time, serendipity has been my muse. In my experience, great journalism follows trails and doors left ajar, and the next big thing is usually just around the corner. My job is to be patient and pay attention.
Case in point: a hot New Orleans afternoon in June 1990. My photo editor at the time, Kurt Mutchler, had recently noticed a homeless camp beneath the Interstate 10 overpass near South Carrollton Avenue. From the interstate ramp heading west, he had caught a glimpse of a living room of sorts, with men resting on ragged couches and old easy chairs circled around a camp stove and rickety tables.
My mind’s eye shifted into overdrive. I needed little more to coax me out the door to see this makeshift community of tattered comfort and surrogate family for myself.
I parked along the back streets, then hiked the remaining hundred yards or so. While commerce and civilization raced noisily overhead, another world emerged beneath the bridge. I picked my way through dense weeds and steel supports along a worn path, pointing my way past rusted shells of forgotten cars and smashed debris, much like the broken lives I expected to find beyond.
I practiced how I would approach the men — what I would say and how I would say it. I prepared my mind for honest compassion and understanding. This world is so different from mine, I reminded myself. My cameras were prepared for whatever might happen. I’d experienced this rush of uneasiness many times before. Some of my most meaningful photographs have been made while treading similarly unpredictable terrain.
As I turned the corner, my previsualized episode evaporated. The sofa was overturned. The tables were smashed. It was as if marauders had ravaged it.
No worries. There’s always the next story, I told myself.
I meandered a bit as I returned to my car, wondering what possibly could have wrecked the scene. I was not prepared for what I saw next: a half-naked man sleeping on a rusty box spring.
I couldn’t have been more startled if he had been an alligator. His bed was overlaid with cardboard and tucked into a cleft of piers and brush. He was covered in a sheet of thick, clear plastic. His head rested on a wadded yellow jacket, also wrapped in plastic. Alongside the bed lay two discarded automotive floor mats, a five-gallon bucket for bathing, a pair of neatly-arranged sneakers, a clean set of clothes, a jug of water and a carefully folded copy of The Times-Picayune. He slept in the fetal position in only his briefs and undershirt.
I climbed the pier with my camera and made a few frames of the scene, then climbed down and woke him. He wasn’t startled in the least. I guess when you sleep under bridges, you learn to expect the unexpected.
He sat up slowly and cleared his head. I asked him if he knew anything about the homeless camp — if he knew what happened to the men.
“Yeah,” he said. “Teens driving by started shooting their guns at them, so they decided there had to be a safer place to live. Why do you ask?”
We talked for a minute or two, about my editor’s idea and journalism in general. After a brief pause, he said, “You ought to do a story about me.”
I’ve heard this line many times before, and many more since.
“And why would I want to do that?” I said.
“Because,” he said, “I’ve played in three Super Bowls.”