Sometimes the hardest photographs aren’t the ones where you juggle a dozen settings, they’re the ones where chance grabs the shutter.
I made this shot just minutes before the police swept in on a migrant who was breathing fire for spare change at a stoplight. My DSLR wasn’t with me, so I used what I had: my phone. I was walking down the street when a passing patrol car spotted the man. He didn’t notice the officers and kept on with his act.
I snapped the frame a heartbeat before he looked up, grabbed his props, and tried to bolt. The police caught him and hauled him off. I wanted to keep shooting, but the officers told me to stop. In the United States people often film and remind cops it’s their right, but in Mexico that protection isn’t guaranteed, so this image became the last photo I took of that fire-breather. He never returned to that corner.
Whenever I study the picture, I wonder where he is now and whether he’s found a safer, more dignified way to earn his daily bread.