Portraits Of Boston: The Enigma

This man was as enigmatic as he was unconventional. He deflected my attempts to start up a conversation with one peculiarly fragmented argument after another while maintaining a cryptic smile the whole time: “I’m not sure about this website...we need some sort of agreement here...what are people going to think of me...but today’s Internet content...how do you know who I am...the appearance is only an image...”

It was rather entertaining, but the light was fading, so I gave up and said, “OK, just a portrait. No story. Would you, please, stand here?”

“But here there are no interesting people,” he said. “I will cross the street, and I will turn around and then you take a picture.”

At this point, I was almost certain that this was his equivocal and original way of getting out of being photographed. I held no hope of getting any photo at all.

However, he swaggered across the street, stopped, turned around just as he said he would, stood there for a second, turned his back on me, and silently disappeared into the crowd.

Portraits of Boston is a project of independent photographer Ivan Velinov. He is regularly sharing some of his favorite portraits with WBUR. Visit his website to see the hundreds of portraits he has taken on the streets of Boston.