The guy in the centre of the image is a local 'displaced person' - as far as I can tell, he doesn't have anywhere to live other than a homeless shelter round the corner from our apartment.
So it's no surprise that without the luxuries of heating, hot running water and oh I don't know, a roof, he makes the most of what he can get when he can get it.
The image was taken just as the sun was about to descend behind the city skyline, and the company I was with had just ventured into a nearby shop. The subject (too clinical? Guy? Bloke? Man?) - anyway - he spent maybe ten minutes that the girls were shopping picking up cigarette butts and rollie ends from the footpath and gutter, chasing the sun as it finished for the day.
I think he knows what he's doing isn't right, and there's a glimmer or of self-respect in there somewhere - it's that or he's right at the other end of the spectrum where he's the sole occupant of Planet ME. He doesn't look anyone in the eye, or acknowledge passers-by - he reaps enough tobacco from discarded butts, roll ups, and smokes - happy in his own mind that even if he has no roof, he has a cigarette to smoke.
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