Derrick came into my work and gestured to play a game of chess with me…

No one else came in that night, just him and I for almost 2 hours.

He explained to me what it means to ‘defer’ to someone. He explained to me Karma as Buddhism intended. He explained to me how he considers himself a maverick…

While I was hesitating to make my chess move for an excruciating amount of time, his senses abruptly pricked up, and he scoured the bar until he saw a guitar. It was as if he could smell the instrument.

From then on, it felt like a trance. Derrick played and played without fault for hours. New song after new song. I never have looked at some playing guitar and thought they were one; a singular being.
He never explained how important music was to him, but I did not doubt the extraordinary connection he had to it.

His love to strike the guitar strings while singing folk or blues spoke volumes about him. I knew I had to get a photo.

Some photos are blurry – a byproduct of my attempt to battle low light conditions with instinct alone – but it might have been the perfect accident:
Those 2 hours felt like a sprinting trance, so much so that the camera could not even keep up.

I have no idea where Derrick is now – typical of a maverick – but I am damn glad I met him.