Don’t!

“Don’t take my photo!”

If you’re a photographer, you’re just going to hear that refrain. I try to ask before I take someone’s photo, but in social situations it’s not always practical to ask everyone in the room, and if it’s a public place it’s certainly not. There might be hundreds or thousands of people in a public shot, depending on where you are. But if it’s one on one it’s polite to ask and I usually do.

I like to take my camera with me to parties and out on the street. As I’ve done this more often in my daily life, I’ve notice a curious social phenomenon: You can pretty much take photos of someone with you phone all day long and they just won’t care or notice; but the moment the “serious” camera is spotted suddenly they’re all aware. This sorta translates to–It’s okay if a billion people on Facebook sees my photo, but not the ten people who visit your photography blog.

This is a photo of my wife’s hands. She was objecting to having her photo taken. Perfectly understandable. I’ll just have to make better use of my phone. : )

But I love this photo: The hands are blocking the view; you can see just a bit of the subject between the spread fingers, and there’s a real sense of the photographer being pushed away.