When shooting street photography there is always a chance that you will be approached by people that don't have your best interest at heart. When I was doing alot of street shooting I was harassed by a homeless guy that wanted me to take his picture for a buck. At first I resisted but soon found that the logical thing to do was take his photo and be done with it. So, I took his photo and paid the fee and moved on.
Another time I was shooting in Santa Barbara of all places and was approached by a gang member who was suspicious of me taking pics on his turf. The weird thing was that I was along the waterfront by Stearns Wharf on a beautiful sunny evening with tourists walking by and here I was being confronted by a gang banger (Tobias was his name) holding a beer bottle and asking me for ID. I could have balked but once again my intuition took over and I saw the danger being presented so I took out my business card that was in a plastic sleeve and attached to this card was another plastic sleeve that had a 35mm slide enclosed. Once Toby (we were fast becoming friends) saw this and was convinced that I wasn't a narc taking photos of him and his buddies, he said to me, "If anyone gives you any trouble tell them Toby said it was all right for you to take photos".
No comments:
Post a Comment