Michelle Rick, a community contributor to The Local East Village, turns her lens on New Yorkers in motion.

“The homeless man in this shot is as oblivious to this woman as she is to him. Is this mutual indifference a function of being a New Yorker? I hope not. Ideally, I’d like to pierce the armor before I take the shot.”

“People seem to dig these guys. Even my mother, when she saw the picture and my title – ‘Cool Boys’ – said, ‘Yes they are!’ in this swoony glassy-eyed way.”

“The woman’s head is cut off, glare fades the colors and figures on street-level, and it isn’t perfectly centered. But you are there. You can almost smell it.”

“Broadway. I could stand on the corner of Eighth Street and Broadway all day and turn out hundreds of pictures of cool cats.”

“Looking at pictures after a day of shooting is like unwrapping presents. Some are disappointing – but there are often one or two happy surprises. I thought this picture would be a throw-away, that the woman would not stand out in a photo, but her eyes do more than connect with the camera, they look through it.”

“I’ve always been madly in love with New York, but before I started taking pictures, I was disconnected. Now I can’t imagine walking past this couple without noticing them. My life and work is richer with all these people in it.”

Michelle Rick is a community contributor to The Local East Village.

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