free advice

Dear Friend,

Have you ever looked at someone on the street…in the mall...or at your favorite place to grab some tea or coffee and thought about seeking advice about some difficult decision you have to make…or how about your love life…or maybe even seeking spiritual wisdom from that person? Maybe I'm just closed minded, but I don’t think that I would be able to do that…it would just be strange. haha...could you imagine telling your girlfriend, "yeah, i'm sorry we need to break up", and when she asks why you tell her, "well, there was this guy at Dairy Queen and he told me we need to break up."

I was in New York City about a year ago and I have to say that New York was one of my favorite places to take photographs.

I remember I had seen these photographs from Central Park…what I don’t remember is where I had seen this photo on display though. Maybe it was from a movie or maybe it was at one of those venders on the side of the road in New York. Either way I loved this picture…it was of this long path and there are all these benches along the sides and it has these really tall trees that seem to make this archway that you walk under.

I really wanted to capture this scene…but I didn’t…I ended up taking this photo but to be honest I don’t really like it that much…



But I did find something that day worth taking a picture of…I kept walking up and down that long path hoping that eventually I would find a different angle or viewpoint that I liked so that I could take the picture. While walking around I noticed that there were these two guys and they were setting something up near one of the benches…I couldn’t tell what it was at first…it was odd because they opened up this fold up chair and placed it in front of them. That didn’t make any sense to me because there was no one to sit in this chair and these two guys were sitting next to each other on the bench and so I was confused and hooked. Shortly after they opened up the chair one of the guys got up and placed this sign right behind the chair. The sign read...Free Advice…it was written by hand and it was written with a black marker…the sign was nothing more than a large white folded piece of paper.

I had one of those moments where you know what your eyes are seeing…but then you don’t know what your eyes are seeing. Almost like the obvious is just too obvious.

But I watched…I was hooked…this was like real life reality TV!

At first people just walked by and looked and then they looked again…you could tell they were thinking something…if I had to guess they were thinking, “did that sign say?…yeah I think it did.” a few times I just wanted to say, “yeah, it does”, and ask them if they wanted to watch with me. But I didn’t.

After a little while this guy walked by…and then I noticed he walked by again…and then sure enough he sat down in the chair.

That is when I captured this photo…



This guy sat in that chair for at least 45 minutes…there was one point in their conversation that he even started to cry…

I know this is random but I remember I started to think about church buildings… I thought about those billboards that all churches have in front of them…you know the ones that say the churches service times or sometimes you might see Jesus Saves…well, I was thinking about those signs and I was wondering what would happen if church billboard signs read, Free Advice!

I wonder if any random people would come in and talk and maybe even cry. I think that would be pretty neat.

Next time I am in New York I want to sit on one of those benches and place a chair out and put a sign up that says…Free Advice.

heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts