True or False | 04:26AM Oct 12, 2007
Beware the faint of heart: I am about to be very politically incorrect. I’m about to insult the integrity of a homeless man begging for change. A “vet,” no less. Brace yourselves.
You’ll have to excuse my cynicism toward our friend Eugene here. But in my defense, I would like to point out that after I asked (with every ounce of docile politeness) to take his photograph, I was assaulted with insults and threats. My favorite was his quip concerning my obstruction of a public roadway, a crime which he was clearly innocent of.
I understand when people don’t want their picture taken. I will respect that request under most circumstances. However, Eugene here skipped the whole respectful declination part. Instead, he opted to ignore my question all together and jumped right into insulting my photographic intentions. As we all know, every Canon shutter is forged in the fires of hell.
All of that to say, Eugene pissed me off. I decided to return the favor by ignoring his barrage of profanity and continuing to fire away. Now, I want all you aspiring street photographers to take our your notebooks for this one. I was able to confidently continue shooting because, as I learned during my time at RIT as long as someone is in public domain—i.e. in the middle of the road—they’re fair game. The iffy part comes when you begin dealing with storefronts, open cafés, and the like. Lucky for me, domain doesn’t get much more public than this
Now that we have sufficiently beat that horse, I am in fact quite happy with this image. I feel that given the circumstances I came away with a few quality shots. Hey, all is fair in love and photography, right?
You’ll have to excuse my cynicism toward our friend Eugene here. But in my defense, I would like to point out that after I asked (with every ounce of docile politeness) to take his photograph, I was assaulted with insults and threats. My favorite was his quip concerning my obstruction of a public roadway, a crime which he was clearly innocent of.
I understand when people don’t want their picture taken. I will respect that request under most circumstances. However, Eugene here skipped the whole respectful declination part. Instead, he opted to ignore my question all together and jumped right into insulting my photographic intentions. As we all know, every Canon shutter is forged in the fires of hell.
All of that to say, Eugene pissed me off. I decided to return the favor by ignoring his barrage of profanity and continuing to fire away. Now, I want all you aspiring street photographers to take our your notebooks for this one. I was able to confidently continue shooting because, as I learned during my time at RIT as long as someone is in public domain—i.e. in the middle of the road—they’re fair game. The iffy part comes when you begin dealing with storefronts, open cafés, and the like. Lucky for me, domain doesn’t get much more public than this
Now that we have sufficiently beat that horse, I am in fact quite happy with this image. I feel that given the circumstances I came away with a few quality shots. Hey, all is fair in love and photography, right?
