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.