Re: [Leica] on photographic seeing

[George Huczek <ghuczek@sk.sympatico.ca>]

At 04:50 AM 16/08/98 -0600, you wrote:
>If someone stuck a camera in your face, and did it a hundred times a day,
>while you were going about the business of making a living, you too might
>get tired of it and wish to retaliate in some relatively benign and frankly
>humorous way.
>
>The problem I have with my own attempts at street photography is that,
>whenever I raise the camera to my eye I project myself to the other side of
>the lens.  I do not like being photographed by anyone for any reason.  I
>applaude anyone who has the forebearance to permit themself to be
>photographed repeatedly without some form of compensation and has the good
>grace to accept it each time.

I got the feeling firsthand about five years ago.  Before then, I had no
problem walking around Japan taking candid street photos.  Those folks were
out in public, and were "fair game" after all, so what's the big deal, eh?
I might as well have been taking pictures of wild animals in a game park.
I was very crude and insensitive when it came to what I was doing, and why
I was doing it.  I had no sense of respect at all for the people I was
photographing.
   Canada has seen an increase in Japanese tourism, particularly around the
west coast, and places like Banff National Park.  Slightly further east, in
the prairies, we don't see Japanese tourists too often, but about five
years ago I was going about my business in downtown Regina, where I was
working, when a busload of Japanese tourists pulled in for a one night
stay.  People photographed me while I was outside walking or waiting for a
bus, when I was shopping, when I was eating in restaurants, etc.  I felt as
if they were intruding on my privacy, taking advantage of me.  No one
approached me and tried to make any contact, but the telephoto lenses kept
firing away.  I was being violated, and by some remote fluke of coincidence
it might have even been by some of the very people I had treated the same
way years earlier.  The episode made me much more sensitive to the issue,
and now I try to make some brief or extended contact with the subject
beforehand, explaining what I am trying to do and why.  Even though I may
loose the spontaneity of the moment in the photo, I develop a relationship
with the other person, and that is more satisfying to me when I look back
at the pictures later.


- -GH