... The flash clicked in the dark like an accurate shot, and I fixed the shot. The guy with the girl, hugging tightly, stood at the cafe, carried away by a mutual kiss. I caught their lips locked, eyes closed. Passion has left my intervention unnoticed by them. They were not distracted and did not glance in my direction, but I got what I wanted. Photos of someone else's love. I needed it in my photo collection.

Because I didn't have my love.

Mentally I envy this couple, kindly, white envy, I smile and move on. Late evening, bordering on the night - my time. It allows me to create and be free. Yourself. With its own "I", imperceptible to others. I walk through the night streets and look for interesting stories in which people express the main thing - their feelings. Here, I notice another kiss. I grin again - at the entrance to the park, before the darkness of the alley, two girls kiss tenderly, passionately. I can't miss it, I'm getting very close, and my camera is aimed at them. I note their slender bodies in short skirts, sticking out the ass, not yet disfigured by excess weight. The girls are distracted, feeling the light of the flash, the invasion of their intimate zone, and detach themselves from each other, allowing the second picture to catch a surge of confusion, even shame. But when they see a guy unfamiliar to me with a camera, they relax, even cheer. One of them, a brunette with eyes glittering in the dark, takes a step in my direction.

- Cool to spy? She appeals to me easily, with a laugh. The girls clearly amused that the guy with the camera witnessed their feminine kiss. Or something more - feelings, mutual dependence, pleasure.

“Can you get a photo at least?”

“No film, no printout, please,” I reply just as easily and kindly.

- Telefonchik give? - the brunette comes closer.

I take out a piece of paper from my pocket with a printed home contact, I use them as business cards. I always give to those who ask, and give photos after production. I also do not refuse money. The brunette approaches almost closely, curiously looks at my face, darkened at night. Her cheerful, burning look is changing, crossed out in horror. Frightened screaming. Turning around, there is enough of a girlfriend who does not understand anything, and both quickly go into the depths of the park. I can only laugh at this fastidious escape, it seems that this photo will be only in my album. This reaction will not surprise me.

The reaction to my face.

... It happened in childhood. Pampering with a bottle filled with gasoline, a fire, boyish games with which the head is full at this age. Half of the face resembles a dug field burnt with shattered fragments of a bottle and mixture. Dugged by the fragments of my childish stupidity. They could not fix the face, and it remained so burned, causing others to have different feelings and thoughts. The simplest of them is that you can't joke with fire. More complex - sympathy, pity, finally what was written in the eyes of the runaway girl. I used to look at me, the eyes of others change, filled with something that these people mentally correlate with themselves. How many such eyes I caught on the camera, fixing this human emotion. Differently people call those who are not like them.

- Freak! Someone shouted from the boys when I, a ten-year-old boy, moved into the area with my mother and appeared in the courtyard. I just wanted to take a walk, make friends with the local boys, with interest, mixed with disgust, I considered. He called me the strongest and most snooty redhead Vovan. Immediately vmazal me on the ear, then all connected. I do not blame them, they beat me from fear that they might be like me. Although I was the same, their peers, just not too beautiful. Often remembered that day. Not because it was insulting and painful. But because I first saw her.

- Well, piss off from him! - I heard a formidable, angry female exclamation, when I was knocked down, lying in the yard sand. The attackers were taken aback by a flying girl, five years old, that there are forces that stuck Vovan on the head with a school bag. The rest also got, and my offenders quickly ungrouped around.

She is. Ale My savior.

- Does it hurt you? - Carefully, with compassionate participation, the girl asked, helping me to get up. I turned away, did not want her to consider me. But still could not stand it and looked into her face.

I did not see any new reaction in him, the look expressed the same participation. I had a reaction.

How beautiful she was. Bright blue eyes sympathetically clapping huge, like the eyelashes fanned. I saw in her eyes the reflection of my face, before they were large and deep, filled with heavenly purity, kindly burning. Forcing to stand still in admiring admiration.

- What is your name? - asked the charming woman, helping me to dust off like a little one.

“Sasha,” I reply, being filled with delight at the proximity of this creature. She is older than me, but I feel like I want to grow up. To reach her.

“No one will touch you anymore,” she promised. The next day, Stas appeared in the courtyard, a strong tenth-grader, a suitor and a fan of Eli. He built the children in a minute - Vova and my other offenders, and announced the rules of their relationship to me, noting in a special tone the consequences of their violation. Vova grimly frowned, but did not dare to contradict. The authority of Stas was stronger than his ambitions. And soon Vovka and I became good companions.

I can’t say that after that Eley and I became friends, too long there was a great difference in age. But she always found time to talk with me, treated me in a special way, without noticing my deformity. Treated as an equal. And my first photos were, of course, hers.

On the 12th anniversary my mother gave me a camera. Cool, professional. I knew what my mother had to give up in order to save on her modest incomes on my dream. I accepted the gift as my new destiny, because photography art captured me completely.

“You're doing great,” Elya said, receiving my first photos of her. She posed for me in the courtyard and in the park, allowing the lens to retract its maturing beauty. She especially liked one photo where she stood, exposing a nude, beautifully slim leg against a background of blossoming spring lilacs. Then she kissed me on the cheek for the first time. On the cheek of the burned half of the face. I felt like blushing with shame.

“Take a photo, it's yours,” she said. And I continued. Could wander around the city all day, noting the play of light and shadow, catching interesting angles, achieving perfection in photographs. After school I decided not to go anywhere, and there was no money in the family anymore. Mom earned a penny, began the 90s, when many had to revise the nature of their occupation, to find themselves in a new way in the new time. I finished school and started working as a film maker in our small-scale photo studio. The photographer of the studio liked the level of my photos, and now I could pull our family budget with my mother.

I still wanted more. Become a pro photographer. Glossy magazines have already appeared on store shelves, where such as I have been given the happiness to demonstrate my art. I dreamed like a boy that once my photos would be on the covers. For less, I did not agree. The first pushes of vanity in the soul. I couldn’t succeed in anything, only in the photo, when my work was hung out in the school at the exhibition of young talents. And after graduation, this hobby appeared - to walk in the evenings and take pictures in the dark. Sneaky, searching and fixing entertaining situations, incidents, postures of people and their facial expressions. I was often noticed, reacting to the light of the flash, treated differently. Many of them are positive, especially when they later get high-quality photos from me, where people looked different, it is unusual for themselves, in some cases it is ridiculous.They paid, sometimes even generously, well, and took the film. They did not want these photos to be somewhere else. Sometimes they asked that ...