Shadows on the Sidewalk

Skid Row Downtown Los Angeles

In the hush before the city wakes,
where the sun spills like apology across cracked concrete,
they lie—
not sleeping, but surviving
beneath the indifferent breath of dawn.

A brick wall stretches like a barrier between worlds—
one that moves, and one that waits.
Cardboard becomes a pillow,
plastic bags hold what’s left of a life
once filled with plans no one asked about.

The early light, gentle and golden,
reveals everything society hides in shadow.
Here, names are replaced with glances,
and footsteps grow louder than compassion.
Still, they endure—silent sentinels of a system that forgot their names.

Shot on Kodak Gold 200,
this moment isn't nostalgia—
it's testimony.
Not of a city’s failure,
but of its silence.

And in that silence,
a question lingers like the morning chill:
What kind of world wakes up,
and walks past this?