A Walk To Remember

It was April 4th, 2024.  404 Day.  I was walking in Downtown Atlanta with my girlfriends Sony ZVE10 camera, looking for something.  What was it?  I'm writing this nearly 6 months later, so I'm not exactly sure what my mentality was at the time.

Hah, I'd have to go back and figure this out... I don't like blogging, I like taking pictures.  I'm going to go up to City Hall tomorrow (today) and who knows what I'm gonna say, but...

First off... I mixed a few things up I think this photo was actually taken on April 8th... which means less than a month later I'd get fired up and "finish" my code project G2.

Anyway, my fascination continued recently and I returned to this exact location because on Saturday Oct 18, I was going to check out Cat Eye's closing sale, and as my girlfriend and I were walking towards Mitchel street we encountered a woman and her daughter sitting next to a huge pile of trash.  Like an obscene amount of trash.

Me being me it's crazy I didn't whip my camera out and take a picture, I think I did it out of respect.  I was also in a rodeo clown costume coming from Little 5 Points, so it may have not been as handy as it normally would be.

I thought, there's "no way they cleared that trash out" by Sunday morning, and I took my trusty XT-4, but they in fact had cleared the trash.

The woman said she had gotten a job at Emory, I hope they are doing alright.

I admittedly had an odd fixation/fascination with the "South Downtown" group. My first job out of college was working at a company named Hannon Hill, and I actually went back and worked for them about a decade later when they were located in the Tech Village.   That building was purchased with the money earned when a company named Pardot was sold for close to 100 million dollars.  I was still working at Hannon Hill when they started Partdot, and it's been interesting watching "DC" play real life monopoly in Downtown Atlanta.

Looking for a spark, and wanting to be there "from the get" I had been paying 100 bucks a month for a hot desk at the ATV Masons location.   I'm not exactly sure what they were trying to do, but at one point everyone got moved out for a renovation, and I hadn't been down there in a while.

I believe at this point I was also aware they were moving Cat Eye Creative out of the building they had occupied, and so I was also fascinated by that decision among other things.  I'm also writing this since a couple murals have been wiped off the walls, notably the one by Tilt that had been touched up in the previous year.

Well, I was taking pictures of the Tilt mural when a gentleman approached me and asked for some money for a bus to take him somewhere.  I told him I didn't have any cash on me, to which he replied that there was an ATM up the street.  Something inside me said "let me help this guy" and so I started walking up towards ___ with him, and that's when it happened.

A couple was approaching me from the north, and seeing the camera strapped up on my chest the guy hollard to take their picture.  So I snapped a few and then went on my way.

When I got home and took a look at the pictures I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of "gems."  I also got a good one of the "bus" man, but the ones of the couple were so off-the-cuff and beautiful.

I wanted to step my game up and started researching cameras and zeroed on a Fuji XT-4.

This is the photo that "started it all" and reignited my love for street photography:

There is a photo gallery associated with this blog post.  It was interesting to see I got one snap off of the mural before I stopped and went walking off with the guy.