The Cutter

Fabric Cutter, Borough Park, Brooklyn

I showed two versions of this image to my father. One was black and white, and this one in color. He instantly preferred the black and white, because he adored the Old World feeling it evoked. I posted it to Instagram despite my own preference for what I consider to be a better, more engaging and modern representation of the man and his surroundings. I deleted the black and white image a few hours later, and replaced it with reality. Because, after all, I’m not out to promote stereotyped views of the world. If an image confirms a stereotype I suppose it’s at times unavoidable. But….there’s reality. The reality here is that there’s this group of people living in the modern world but who steadfastly maintain their cultural identity, and who are able to exist and resist, at least on the surface. But surfaces lie, although blamelessly in these instances, and fail to tell the whole story. And, underneath the interesting garb and unusual exteriors lie human hearts, and they feel and do and wish for things just like everyone else does. They are not merely decorative….they are people.