Taking photos of strangers

[shootingstar]

http://www.thestar.com/travel/article/636379

During your travels anywhere, do you occasionally chose to take photos of a stranger, just because they looked interesting to you, etc.?

I tend to take photos where stranger(s) are part of an event, a whole picture composition (to give it a human dimension/comparison against a natural or man-made landscape) or the 'stranger' is clearly a performer or worker (ie. in a shop) doing something.

Have not yet asked any stranger because they looked 'interesting' to pose for a photo shot.

Maybe I just have a different focus around me in my travels and want to remember trips differently. 'Course maybe I haven't travelled broadly enough and haven't seen "exotic" enough looking people?

[Kalidurga]

Check out the 100 Strangers (http://www.100strangers.com/) project. I've been lazy and only shot 2 strangers so far, but that would be a great excuse to take stranger photos when traveling.

[Zen]

Sometimes I shoot from the hip.
I took this photo without aiming
http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb14/zencentury/AmishHipster.jpg
After, he said "did you just take my picture?"
I played stupid and said "I'm not sure" like I didn't know how to work the camera.
He continued on his way, probably cursing tourists.

He was just too interesting to let get away.

[Zen]

Oh my! How could I forget this one?
http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb14/zencentury/CanalHoneys.jpg
Although I didn't ask permission, they knew I was taking their photograph.

[sfa]

My niece was recently the subject of unwanted photos taken by strangers, and lots of them. She's four, and blonde and adorable, and busloads of tourists started making her the focus of their photos while she was in transit between Tromso and Oslo. They thought that she looked like a typical Norwegian girl, and there she was in Bergen looking all local colorish, so they gathered around taking her picture, and when she retreated to her pile of luggage with her blanket to try to get a break, they thought this was even cuter and really closed in. My sister tried to protect her as best she could, but there's only so much you can do when you're faced with the tourist paparazzi. Not one person thought to ask if it was o.k. to take her picture, and they didn't speak any of the same languages that my sister speaks, so getting them to back off was next to impossible.

The joke of all of this, of course, is that my niece doesn't have a drop of Norwegian blood in her. She was born and raised in Virginia and is of Scotch-Irish ancestry, so these tourists are all going to go home with bunches of pictures of an American tourist.

At any rate, from the way my sister described it, it was invasive for the whole family and scary for my niece.

Sarah

[PamNY]

Zen, you got a live action shot of a hipster! I'll bet he has a fixie at home.

Pam

[Zen]

In my mind he's an Amish hipster :D

Taking photos of a child who is not yours without permission is just wrong verging on creepy.

[Aggie_Ama]

I can't recall that I have myself other than some really cool performers at Fisherman's wharf. DH did take a picture of an woman walking in Red River, NM. We both felt very weird doing it but she looked like the so called "mountain people" and we were in the mountains. We just haven't shared the photo, but it did remind us of a funny night walking in the cool mountain air.

I personally can be very weirded out by strangers so I try not to be weirding anyone out. I would probably ask if I had the nerve.

[Cataboo]

I sometimes take photos of strangers - I tend to try to do it surreptitiously and in a non-creepy way.

There's times when I'd really like to take photos of a child, but I generally don't unless I'm far away & it's not obvious what I'm doing, because that's just creepy.

I took these today of some girls running on the beach near my kayak:

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_WfCe0A3iU1c/SiIPdG978DI/AAAAAAAAAfo/yuKSlHutE5g/s512/IMGP4228.JPG

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_WfCe0A3iU1c/SiIPeDeWQiI/AAAAAAAAAfw/ygKItwuQBhY/s512/IMGP4234.JPG

[Zen]

Where is that water?

[OnTerryOh]

I ask and most people say yes. It does detract from the spontaneity of the compostion -- you get more posed and less candid outcomes, but it feels more honest.

I've always been bothered by that famous shot of the woman with the green eyes on the cover of National Geographic -- was she from Iraq? -- my thought being that she probably made nothing from that picture. I'd guess the photographer made enough to buy a house or send a kid to college.

One time I shot a father and son in a red canoe about 100 feet below me in a river. I shouted down to them for their address, and I sent them a copy of the shot. About two years later a neighbor introduced me to the father and he told me how grateful he was for the picture, that he has it hanging on the wall of his office.

Once I took my neighbor Priscilla's picture with her dog, Rudy. I hardly knew Priscilla at the time.

Just a few weeks later, on the fourth of July, Rudy got a heart attack and died from the stress of hearing all the fireworks in our neighborhood. The poor dog was indoors with his owners, but the noise was too much for him. The picture I took was the only one Priscilla had of herself with Rudy.

Last summer, the movie, "Public Enemies", starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale was shot in Chicago and other locations in the midwest. I got close-up pix of quite a few of the extras one night in downtown Chicago.

There were a dozen or so 1930's cars in the film, and I also took pictures of some of them. The owners of the cars actually drive their cars in the movie.

One of the car owners asked me to send him my photos, and because they were night shots they didn't turn out too well. So, I called him and managed to get on the movie set again during the day for a few more pictures, which I sent to him. He sent me a kind note of thanks.

"Public Enemies" will be released June 30 and it will be interesting for me to see which cars and extras I photographed will actually be visible in the movie.

By the way, I did get to see Johnny Depp, but not close enough or long enough for a picture.

[Cataboo]

Where is that water?

Chesapeake Bay - I paddled out to Thomas Point lighthouse.

Let me know if you wanna be bored by 80 photos of the front of my boat in water.

[Grog]

I've always been bothered by that famous shot of the woman with the green eyes on the cover of National Geographic -- was she from Iraq? -- my thought being that she probably made nothing from that picture. I'd guess the photographer made enough to buy a house or send a kid to college.


Sharbat Gula. Afghan woman in a refugee camp in Pakistan.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2002/04/afghan-girl/index-text

I am also very shy (ETA: Not shy in general but about taking people's pictures.) but I do try to avoid taking photos of people without asking. (I lost many good opportunities.)

One issue in Vancouver, pre-Winter Olympics (in early 2010) is all the attention that the Downtown Eastside gets. It's basically a place with a lot of drug addicts, some street prostitution, and a lot of people having a really hard time in life. It's the poorest postal code in Canada. And journalists are pouring there from all over the world to take pictures of the homeless. There's a good side to it (exposing a problem) but now there are women's groups educating the women who work on the street about their rights and how to turn away journalists. Just because they are prostitutes doesn't take away their right to control their image.

[OnTerryOh]

Thanks, Grog.

[badger]

When I was 28 I went on a spur-of-the moment, nothing-reserved-except-for-the-flight-trip to San Patricio Melaque and Barra de Navidad (near Manzanillo).

I wanted the total non-gringo experience so where I went, I had to rely on my pathetic Spanish. There were some stark scenes of poverty (and pure joy when children were playing) and wanted to capture those images.

Some of the more blatant ones I asked for permission (pointing at my camera and at the person) and they always said yes. If I find time I'll scan them.

[Cataboo]

Unfortunately in most poorer countries I've been to, a lot of the people have found that they can charge tourists for taking photos of them... In Peru they were dressing up in native costume with llamas, waiting for a tourist to take their photo to demand money. It just adds to the hassle factor.

I made sure never to take a photo of someone & their llama for that reason, but did take some pics of people from far away with a telephoto. We did ask a bunch of porters on the inca trail that were resting on a rock if we could take their photo - they agreed, one guy covered his face.


Or in vietnam they dress up as a cowboy or as a monkey and wait for you to take their picture to ask for money. It's awfully odd.

[redrhodie]

Once when I lived in NYC, I was walking through Washington Sq and a couple of young Japanese guys approached me and asked if they could take their picture with me. I was flattered, and let one pose with me. Later, I told my bf, and he joked that they were going to tell their friends "This is my American girlfriend!" :D I was dressed in a vintage outfit that day, so I guess I looked interesting. :rolleyes:

[shootingstar]

Several months ago, I just discovered a videoclip that is on the Internet and posted by our regional transportation government dept. on cycling in Vancouver that was promoting a particular cycling route that was created a few years ago. Now it has been recently extended for extra few kms.

Within the lst 8 min. of the clip, to my surprise, it included a video clip of 3 cyclists filmed in summer of 2005... 2 of them ..were myself and my dearie on our bikes! It was an aerial shoot of us from several hundred ft. above probably from a balcony somewhere. We were merely going somewhere on that day. There was no cycling event. We were not aware of being videotaped/photographed.

I nearly freaked since neither he nor I had any knowledge of this video clip existed at all. So nearly 5 yrs. later., I discovered it. :eek:
But I now treasure this video clip. It really is a rare cycling treat for he and I have this. :)

[shootingstar]

For the original news article that I posted at beginning, I was reminded of a photo that I took of my cousin's little boy in San Francisco's Chinatown when I was visiting relatives there.

The photo of the boy is spontaneous and I suppose "artsy" with the Chinese calligraphy in chalk on a blackboard somewhere at a storefront, but I didn't plan it that way at all.

When I first got the photo developed (it was over 20 yrs. ago), I suddenly realized that I don't go around deliberately shooting portraits of people I didn't know. I barely knew the little boy since he belonged to a cousin who I met for the lst time and previously I didn't even know she existed even though she is my age.

_________________________
A long time ago, a good friend's brother went to Asia, hiking and touring for a few months. I went to an evening get together where he showed a slide show of his best photos. He did have a few portrait facial shots of Asians who were strangers to him. He is Polish-Canadian. He sort of made comments in this distant analytical way of how they looked from an aesthetic viewpt.

The viewing group of friends, were all people I didn't know except for his sister, a good friend of mine. There was one other woman of Asian descent, who reacted quite strongly. I can't remember the whole incident, but basically she was furious at the paternalistic attitude of how these photos "objectified" people in this "exotic" country...well, if you think about it, these people could easily be a relative of hers or mine...at a different time or place. The rest of the acquaintances were all white.

I did feel very strange watching and hearing the commentary about the portrait shots, even before her outburst to the host. In all honesty, I actually did not watch the remainder of the slide show.

One person's exotica can be (but not always) another person's distant reminder of their loved ones/ancestors.

I do have an exotic shot of myself...I'm a baby and my mother is wearing a cheong-sam, the high collar Chinese dress. It is a shot that my siblings wish they had a similar photos of themselves when they were babies.

[channlluv]

I'm more in the "wish I had my camera" category these days, but once upon a time, I took lots of portrait shots and have even had one in a juried show. I only took these portraits with permission, mainly because portraiture is a look not only at the subject, but into the world of the subject, and often shows some deeper emotional level than you'll get in a landscape shot. Depends on the subject, of course, but I'd feel really weird taking pictures of people without their permission, especially kids.

That said, my brother was stationed in South Korea a few years ago and he used to go out into the markets and sent me some really beautiful pictures of the people there. One of my favorites is two old men playing something that looks like checkers. I think it may be go, but I'm not familiar enough with that game to know the difference.

My favorite photography subject these days is my daughter. Luckily, she's a very agreeable subject.

Roxy

[Andrea]

I've been on the "stranger" end of this a few times at some of the bigger-name bike races I've gone to. I'd be warming up on the trainer or discussing race tactics with teammates in a huddle & see a camera pointed at me/us out of the corner of my eye. It was a really odd feeling at first, but I guess I was a little flattered at the same time :D

[invsblwmn]

I videotaped a whole town of strangers... :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWC-8SOY59c&feature=channel_page

[OnTerryOh]

Lotta women named Marge in that town.

And the True Value Hardware is also a General Store, Post Office and barber shop.

I hope you got everybody's permission. ;)

[Zen]

:D :D That's hilarious
"They were drinking heavily last night and she grew" :D

[OnTerryOh]

I videotaped a whole town of strangers... :)


It was pretty funny. :D :)

[Tuckervill]

oh man, I'm still laughing!

I wish I was that creative on the spot like that.

Karen

[snapdragen]

From my weekend in San Francisco. Two street musicians were arguing over who got the prime spot by the Cable Car stop. A third became the mediator and convinced them to toss a coin.

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h181/snapdragen/MsgBoards/TheCoinToss.jpg

[deeaimond]

I just got back from cambodia, and i did take alot of pictures. The most interesting things to me were people, just doing stuff and going about their everyday life. Most of the time, just smile real big and they don't mind. if your photo-taking is obstructing them from doing something, like make a sale, then maybe thats wrong, but most of the time they get a real kick out of seeing their own picture after you have taken it. but then most people in cambodia are really nice and don't mind the tourists. as a very cambodian-looking tourist i get my fair share of stares, and trust me if they had cameras they'd be taking my picture too... i don't mind. its just a way of recording the things i've seen and the things that have some poignant meaning to me. I'm not going to make money off this. if i could i'd develop pictures on the spot to give to the subjects. but thats impossible for a place with barely any postal service.

just my 2 cents worth on this...

[Zen]

Two street musicians were arguing over who got the prime spot by the Cable Car stop.

That's a great shot.


its just a way of recording the things I've seen and the things that have some poignant meaning to me.

Exactly

[PamNY]

Snapdragen, that is a great photo.

Pam

[loki234]

I never had the chance to take a photo of a stranger for any reason. I just take photos with my relatives and friends. Taking photos of strangers is really a strange thing for me.