People Feature: Alfred of Vallejo

People Feature Series #1

I’m soon moving to a new city, a neighborhood that is, how might I call it, well, an eclectic mix of culture, demographic and economic background. It will be a big change for my husband and I. Yet I resolve the make the best of the situation. We fear what we don’t know. It might just be my lack of knowledge in the local community that makes me fear someone who is different from me. In order to break this barrier, I set out to speak to and photograph one person a day, in the hope of making one new friend a day in the neighborhood so that I understand its people and no longer fear what I don’t know, because now I know.

This is the first of my encounter. Meet Alfred. He likes music and he rides a yellow Windsor bicycle. Here he's dozing off while charging his phone in Starbucks. When he woke up, I asked him his name, we shook hands and he went off to fix a flat tire on his bike.