The Bird Man

August 4, 2012 by Tim Ruane Leave a Comment

I was planning to do a meaningful and relevant series on life at an entrance to the Foggy Bottom subway stop in Washington D.C. USA. I tried a bunch of shots, people walking to and coming from the station’s escalators, merchants selling roses (6 for $3) hot dogs, hats and egg rolls. Didn’t come up with much which I liked. However, I found a couple shots just off the train stop, one across the street (a young man suckin’ on a cigarette), and in a little park by the stop, I found this man: the bird man feeding birds. I thought he was the drunk type as I took pictures of him with his birds, but I spoke to him after I finished photographing, and clearly he was an intelligent and lucid man. He said he worked as a model in the 1970s, and he said I had picked a good man to photograph.

About Tim Ruane

Tim Ruane is an artist and writer. He is a graduate of Georgetown University, where he studied English and art, and has worked as a chief copy editor in the editorial department of The Washington Post, where he has also worked as a freelance photographer. He has written hundreds of poems, two novels a number of short stories. His photographs have been published by The Washington Post, Simon & Schuster and The Good Men Project. He has shown his photographs at Potomac MD Public Library and is scheduled to be published in ShareArt LA, Circumfleks Magazine and Splinter Literary Journal. He will have an exhibition of his photographs in September at the offices of Prudential FedRealty in Washington D.C. Mr. Ruane lives and works in Garrett Park MD, just outside Washington D.C. USA.