The first few rolls of B/W I shot in Manhattan were crap. Masturbatory architecture shots of the Empire State Building, the Flatiron building, MOMA , the Statue of Liberty.

I had them developed at a little photo booth just off Times Square. I knew they were garbage but I had them developed anyway. What the hell; I couldn’t just throw away the exposed rolls.

The guy at the booth said ‘come back in an hour,’ so I killed the time by kidding myself that I could tell which of the women around me were hookers.

I wanted to abandon the prints, but picked them up anyway. I flipped listlessly through the matte-finish 4×6’s. Monochrome crap. I dropped the shitty shots one by one into a corner garbage can while waiting for a cab.

Then I stopped. My Liberty shots were all telephoto, taken from Mahnattan Island. I squinted hard. In this shot, what was that dark speck against the background sky?

A taxi pulled up. I realized the speck was a body, falling from the torch.

“Where to, lady?”

“I need a cop.”