lead with a gift

I wrote an entry about a chess master that I met in downtown Atlanta a couple months ago.  I wanted to go back and find him so I could give him a print of one of the shots I took.  I ended up printing four of them and taking them all.

As I approached the place where these guys play chess I saw him instantly.  He was standing and watching the games that were being played.  I entered his conversation by saying "excuse me".  He turned and seemed a bit irritated that I asked for a moment of his time.  I told him I took a few pictures of him a while back and I wanted to give him a few prints.  He instantly warmed up and obviously recalled our last interaction.  I pulled them out one by one and he reacted positively to each one.  After the third photo he said how come you didn't get my face and I pulled out this one.  He said, "now we're talkin'"  This one was clearly his favorite.

We talked for a while and I was able to learn more about this man whose name I still don't know.  We talked about politics, religion, chess, and eduction to name a few topics we covered.  At one point someone was taking pictures of the group from a distance.  He reacted to it and turned his back toward him.  I pressed him about this and he said he did 20 years (original sentence was life plus 20) because of a camera.  This was ironic to me.  I gave this man a few dollars and he let me take his picture without any knowledge of my intentions while he had a deep understandable resentment towards cameras.  The other thing that struck me as funny was that he clearly committed a crime worthy of a serious sentence.

Originally I had wanted to take some more pictures of this chess master, but I decided that I wouldn't ask this time.  I gave a gift to him and asked nothing in return.  I think next time I see him at the park playing chess I will be welcomed.