(Yes, this is a real photo. It's a technique called High Dynamic Range)


There were footprints surrounding her eyes. Age has begun to creep into her life, allowing for crows to reside under her pupils. They weren’t the bad kind of wrinkles, but the kind that smile at you. They were warm, inviting, and experienced. Life had not been simple for her, yet she didn’t allow for it to seep into her personality. She came to a land where she was unaware of how to live, how to speak, how to breathe. The green pastures and hills of her home disappeared and were replaced with large towering skyscrapers, staring down at her tiny little body. The colors were drab. Barren. Monotone. She had wondered for years in her hand-knit little dresses, clutching onto her mother or father’s hand, trying to stay afloat in the surges of people rushing through the streets. It helped that many people spoke her language, but their accents might have well been a different language to her. She didn’t know her new home. She didn’t know where Harlem was, or Broadway, of Brooklyn. Her house was tiny and cramped. The air was stuffy, the little window in the corner of the room barley let any light in, and the room itself barely fit her parents and herself, let alone the other family they shared the space with. As she grew, she adapted. She learned. She survived. The city quickly became her new home. She learned how to look at it for what it was. It wasn’t just a place, but a living, breathing thing. The chatter of those wondering the streets below was her home trying to speak to her. The hiss and rush of air from the vents in the sidewalks was its breath.  The cold marble exterior of its buildings was its skin. As cold as the surfaces were, it was there for the touch. It didn’t hide from her. It was there for her, when she needed it. When she was old enough and the time came, she could not drag herself from her home. She had become enthralled and entrapped by the concrete and crowds. Her life continued in the avenues and streets. Her orange hair grew long and wavy, soon attracting the attention of many men. She felt like she was cheating on her city when she selected her husband from its crowd. She was always dedicated to her home, now she was focusing on someone else. A family grew, rooted under the asphalt they walked upon every day. Their children embraced the city, their home, growing as she did. Looking into her eyes now, the wrinkles surrounding them her avenues, leading you to her eye, her soul, her inner city.