Not much is known about Godlis. Little of what is known can be believed. There is some truth in the story which finds him at the age of three with a small camera (no flash) roaming the streets of Lower Manhattan. Less credible is the report of a New Year's Eve toast with Robert Frank in 1992. Garry Winogrand always vigorously denied that Godlis was his illegitimate son, and no genetic link has ever been verified by the scientific community.

It is known that in the  70‘s a man using the name Godlis frequented the punk club CBGB's, and that this same man later married a blonde woman with green eyes. Talk of time spent in Boston would sometimes be overheard in their conversations. There are the so-called "lost years" in Miami at the Sea Breeze Motel, tales too sordid for comment, and the rumors of tragedy in France at the hands of a black man known only by his initials.

That is what is known. All else is speculation. Presumably he eats, sleeps, gets a haircut and wears clothes. But you never know. There are people whose jobs depend on you not knowing. Weegee. Friedlander. Wallowitch. All clues but never answers to the question of Godlis. Godlis: man or myth? Comic or saint? Beacon to a generation or petty hustler? Society must take a stand or pay the consequences.

Photography: the mystery that tries to show us everything. Like Godlis, a riddle that gnaws at the very fiber of our being. A lone bongo incessantly beating. Times Square. Coney Island. South Beach. The Lower East Side. Perhaps you think you have been to these places. Godlis disagrees.