Photographing people
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morfeusz mentioned the problem of taking pictures of people you don’t know.
I see people almost every day that I want to take a picture of. Most of the time, I don’t have the camera with me, so I can’t do anything about it. Other times, I can’t get my camera unpacked and up in shooting mode fast enough, before they leave. There also the times when the light is so bad that I couldn’t a good picture anyway, which would ruin the whole thing.
The most annoying moments are however, when you have all the time in the world, the subject is being very still, in perfect light, and all you would have to do is snap the picture. I don’t want to just take a picture, because they are likely to notice me and would perhaps be bothered. Sometimes I do, but mostly it’s when I am taking a picture of something and they are in the line of fire. In Greece I found it pretty easy to really point at people, making a tourist excuse to myself, especially if I was quick about it, just walking by and also taking lots of pictures of everything else. I also usually don’t dare to ask people if I can their picture. When I do, they all ask if I work as a photographer and if the photo is going to be in a paper. It is most likely because my camera looks very professional.
Late last Saturday I was at the airport in Chania, going home. All the flights were late, I was getting tired and people started to sink down in their chairs, those that had chairs, others were sitting/lying on the floor leaned against a wall. I wanted to take pictures of people being tired and sleeping, but I was worried they might get annoyed easily. They were probably already plenty of being annoyed by the late flights.
After walking around a bit, the terminal wasn’t big, I had found a chair. Opposite of me sat a girl, maybe 16-18 years old, long curly hair, white shoes with green shoelaces (don’t know why I remember that). She was very cute as she was resting/sleeping with her head in her hand. My first thought was to take a picture. I was already having my camera up and ready, so it wouldn’t have been a problem. I didn’t want to take her picture before asking if it was ok. Mostly because of the people around me giving me “what a perv” stares, but perhaps mainly because of her parents, giving me the “if you so much as point that camera at my daughter, I will make you burst into flames” glare. She was also sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake her up. I don’t know if it’s a Swedish thing, but it’s custom to not wake sleeping people.
After a while she woke up, and I had no more Swedish excuses. I think I sat their 30 minutes, trying not to stare at her, trying to get the courage to ask her “hello, can I take your picture? oh, by the way, can you pretend to sleep?”, in Swedish. I think she was from Norway, so the conversation would have been pretty smooth. I stand up and decide to walk over to her, exactly when my dad says the plane is leaving and we have to hurry. We really had to hurry, I was the last person on the bus, but it annoyed me the entire flight back. I am over it now though. Or perhaps not. Why else did I write this entry?