Monday, February 2, 2015

A Photo Blogger's Life

The life of an East Village photo-blogger is not an easy one — you have to be very patient, waiting for people to move out of the way of your shot. You also have to be able to bear great frustration, such as when you're about to take a picture and a car parks in front of your subject, or your subject moves. Things like this happen all the time.

Then there's the times when someone asks why you're taking pictures, or tells you you can't take their picture without their permission. Most times it's just easier to tell them I didn't take their picture! I tell them it wasn't them, but the <thing> behind them I took the picture of.

The worst is when you don't have your camera ready. Here are the most recent shots I missed:
  • A seriously-disheveled man was walking across East 9th Street wheeling two bicycles. The caption of this would have been "At least one of these bikes is probably stolen."
  • A man was holding a leash attached to a dog that was peeing, so that at the angle at which I was standing, it looked like the dog was peeing on the car! No caption necessary!
  • Two girls walked by wearing identical green glasses. It was obvious they had just bought them, since they were laughing at how they looked. This is the type of glasses:

Green glasses.

This picture will stand forever as a reminder of another missed shot… in the East Village!

#eastvillage #photographers #9thstreet

2 comments:

  1. if someone gets is my way when i am taking a photo, i just tell them that i will post their picture on my blog - and they quickly skeedaddle!

    i don't have a blog, but they don't know that, so it works. most of the time.

    as a street snapper, i experience many of the same experiences as you do, and all street camera wielders do / have. in a way, that wait of a few seconds or minutes for the street to clear so you get the image and the 'yeah, i got it!' feeling afterwards makes it worthwhile. there are also the lessons of 'i should have taken that photo two seconds ago rather than composing and composing and letting those two persons come in to frame and window shop at that storefront'.

    with digital cameras, there is also the time lag between when you press the button and when the photo actually gets taken. that time lag is long enough that you miss the photo, or you take the photo just before someone comes in to frame and they en d up in the photo.

    :-) oh, the trials and travails and travels of the street photographer! :-) :-)

    I-)

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    1. I've also told people they can be in the shot if they want to — they usually move.

      Yes, it's a hard life!

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