Elias the self made Indian (Street Portraits)

Update: Read here how Elias got his own photographs:
https://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/2015/06/the-self-made-indian-alias-got-his-photograhs/

Elias is watching people at “the Ave” (University Avenue in Seattle) since 1971. I was sitting with him there for more than a day. All the Indian stuff he is wearing was made by himself.
The reason I shot that black and white of him is that he loves b&w photos. He showed me an old photo of Sitting Bull (he is his favorite) and he told me about his favorite horse race Appaloosa.

He told me stories about when a bookstore and a bank was robbed close to his place. Also, a friend got knifed here.
The post office behind him will be his castle sometimes after they close it and then they gonna bury him there…

He has a cell phone, where a friend stole the battery. Anyway, he is just using the SD card from the phone for his mp3 player 🙂 When I was sitting there, I plugged in my iPhone to his speakers and we listened to London Grammar.
He told me stories about when he was young and tried LSD once: “after sleeping for 20 hours, I still saw crocodiles on the sky, fishes on the ground and people looked like hobbits to me, today nobody could handle that in their heads”

He told me one sentence I will never forget:”Everything comes and is in yourself. Also God”

There were some guys on the street playing magic (I took a photo series of them too), the girl there has a dog with only three legs, he calls him tripod 🙂

A woman passed by, he knew her and we started talking. She knows Yoko Ono and then we talked a bit about this topic.

Also, Eva joined us there for a while, they know each other pretty well. And Elias knew what to say to make fun of her.
I went with her to a store to get cigarettes and a coke, even I had the feeling they know each other pretty well, there was not .much trust…..

Looks like people like Elias and Eva are getting free food from the Hare Krishna people and the end of University Ave

Sitting there for a long time with these guys, I saw a lot of stranger passing by. One of them looked at him and said “Yea!”. Elias was looking at me and started to smile.

I think the truth of life is different to everybody of us. Elias taught me lot and the time sitting with him there were one of the most pleasant time of my life.

I’m sure he is sitting still there right now and I’m gonna find a way to send him his own black and white image.