You wouldn’t ordinarily pick this scene as being the middle of winter as its barely snowed since November. Having said that, if I managed to reach this ripe old age I’d probably doing precisely the same ‘chillin’ out’ on a winters day 🙂
I was wondering how your (general) approach to those situations is? Do you just get in front of the old lady and take a picture, thanking her afterwards? Or do you engage in some conversation and then ask her for a picture? (or is it a mixture of both, adapted to the situation?)
Street photography sometimes seems so “rude†to me – “rude†is really a strong word here, but I’ll have to go with it for the lack of a better one. 🙂
I hope you know what I mean, I am just really curious about your personal approach, if you’d like to share.
Yeah, I completely understand what you mean. And it really is rude on some occasions. No question about it.
My approach does depend on the situation. In a busy place it’s easy to get a shot and then speak, smile, nod or whatever afterwards. Quite often there’s also no interaction at all, as they have no idea I’ve actually taken their photo. In this case, however, it was really quiet. Nobody about at all. Plus she saw me approaching from a long way away. So I asked, although to be completely honest, I was lifting the camera as I did. But thankfully she didn’t mind. Actually I moved a bit closer and got a second shot — the one above.
As she was so chilled I didn’t stop and chat. Didn’t want to disturb her anymore than I already had. So thanked her and left. All very nice and relaxed.
Ron says
Well, the caption pretty much says it all!
Lee says
Yeah, pretty much. Didn’t seem worth adding anything else.
Denton says
Great framing on this one. Nice colors too! 🙂
Lee says
Thank you. There was nice and bright uniform light, so couldn’t go wrong really.
David Lowe says
You wouldn’t ordinarily pick this scene as being the middle of winter as its barely snowed since November. Having said that, if I managed to reach this ripe old age I’d probably doing precisely the same ‘chillin’ out’ on a winters day 🙂
Lee says
I know, eh? Apart from a few genuinely cold days, t’s been a very mild winter. Forecast says 20 degrees tomorrow too…
Tobias says
I was wondering how your (general) approach to those situations is? Do you just get in front of the old lady and take a picture, thanking her afterwards? Or do you engage in some conversation and then ask her for a picture? (or is it a mixture of both, adapted to the situation?)
Street photography sometimes seems so “rude†to me – “rude†is really a strong word here, but I’ll have to go with it for the lack of a better one. 🙂
I hope you know what I mean, I am just really curious about your personal approach, if you’d like to share.
Best
Tobias
Lee says
Yeah, I completely understand what you mean. And it really is rude on some occasions. No question about it.
My approach does depend on the situation. In a busy place it’s easy to get a shot and then speak, smile, nod or whatever afterwards. Quite often there’s also no interaction at all, as they have no idea I’ve actually taken their photo. In this case, however, it was really quiet. Nobody about at all. Plus she saw me approaching from a long way away. So I asked, although to be completely honest, I was lifting the camera as I did. But thankfully she didn’t mind. Actually I moved a bit closer and got a second shot — the one above.
As she was so chilled I didn’t stop and chat. Didn’t want to disturb her anymore than I already had. So thanked her and left. All very nice and relaxed.
Tobias says
Woah, thank you very much for the detailed answer, helps me a lot! 🙂
Lee says
You are very welcome.