I don’t know the man. In fact never heard of him before, until I came across a description of his latest adventures.

But I consider myself a soul mate since he combines a zest for adventure with a hefty social consciousness, an eye for fashion and a sense of the ridiculous.  All traits I either have or aspire to….

Who am I talking about as a potential travel companion? Why, Steven Payne. The man who recently bounced across the Alps on a space hopper. Glad you never heard of him either.

We should have, though. He is a man on a mission, a former physics teacher trying to get attention for the problem of homelessness by doing weird trips that has him roughing it outside. Roughing, that is, with a tweet suit, a pith helmet, a waistcoat and an umbrella, to ensure that the stereotypic image of a traveling Englishman is not endangered.

The idea of this particular venture was born while sharing a meal with a homeless man. When he asked him how arduous life on the street is, the man answered,”It’s something that you thought could never happen to you, until it does. As if you, all of a sudden, had to cross the Alps on a space ball.”

 

 

The trip lasted 17 days, taking a partial route traversed by Hannibal before him, from Turin to Grenoble. Prepared with 5 balls, appropriately named and sorely needed, Payne made it despite altitude sickness (some peaks as high as 2000 meters/ almost 7000 feet) a heat stroke and a twisted knee. Hm, what would I have given to be there to photograph…. not that I have the stamina to hike that far and high, much less to balance on one of those contraptions.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-6183827/Meet-Steven-Payne-Englishman-bounced-Alps-space-hopper.html

You can follow his adventures on FB under Pilgrims Progress.

When I started to photograph some 10 years ago, I took quite a few images of homeless people here and abroad. I had not thought it through, had no education about what is acceptable, what is ethical, what is or should be taboo in street photography. I stopped doing it pretty soon thereafter, after helpful discussions in photo critique groups that I joined; even though my shots of people preserved their privacy – taken so that no faces were visible – I consider it now exploitative.

For photographs today, then, I picked round objects in honor of the space balls, particularly the ones named Napoleon Blownapart and Hanniball. Alas, not one of my round choices a good mode of transportation……