The older man was obviously on a mission. They starting talking, a weird juxtaposition between two characters. An older white man with expensive equipment, base ball cap, button up shirt. He could have been any suburban kids grandfather. And a homeless guy. If there was a scene here, I should have taken a shot of both of them. I wondered though, if he was negotiating to take his picture. Soon enough, I saw a dollar pulled out and he held up his camera for less than a minute before the guy took off. It gets weird. The photographer starts to yell about how much he was ripped off and the homeless guy is booking it back across the street with his dollar.
I asked off handily if he was out trying to grab portraits. "Yeah. Did you see that? He ripped me off!" I tried to tell the photographer he wasn't ripped off. This guy is walking around a downtown urban area with thousand dollar digital photo equipment. His artistic vision? To give a homeless guy one dollar; who didn't want his picture taken, he wanted the money. As a photographer, do you feel someone in a desperate situation for money is in debt to you because they have no alternative? No way.
This guy chose to take off before you got your shot and doesn't owe anyone anything. Certainly you have no right to yell at him.
He asked me what kind of camera I'm shooting with and I busted out a disposable I was still working on, concealed neatly in my jacket pocket. Small, light, stealthy. I could bust it out and shoot before anyone could think, "what a weirdo." The contrast between this and his giant rig resulted in an awkward pause between the both of us. He told me that he see's a lot of interesting characters in Oakland as he points to a high school kid wearing some jewelry. "Get it!" is all I said enthusiastically.
We parted ways and I told him to "be brave". Advice that I don't follow often enough, I am still really shy. A minute or so later though I got a photo of a woman that caught my eye. She was strutting in platforms down the sidewalk. "Excuse me, can I take a picture of your hat?". She turned around and I got the portrait in my own way, for what it's worth. "It's a scarf." she said.
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| Would have eliminated a little room at the top of the frame. |
I've had some unfavorable interactions taking pictures of people. Sometimes, it isn't easy how to approach things. Money doesn't actually smooth anything over. I was with a friend near the tenderloin when this man kept asking me to take his picture several times pretty aggressively. I knew it was the opposite of the situation with the photographer in Oakland, so he could demand change from me once I have taken his picture. I kept saying no. We went to refill my friends coffee at Starbucks. I am sitting opposite him and he looks up past me. "Our friend is back". I turn around and didn't know what he meant and I see the following scene in front of me:
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| At least this photo got him off this girls back. |
He loses it and is demanding 20 dollars when I have maybe 50 cents at best in my pocket. Three SFPD having coffee, break up the scene and send the guy away. I start to get lectured about how I can't take peoples picture without their permission, how it's illegal, and how dangerous it is. But I think it all was because I interrupted their break. My first photo that invoked the fuzz, crazy!
If I felt that I could have compensated this guy in some positive way, and not monetarily I would have. I don't like it when people get pushed out anywhere, even a Starbucks by the man.
I think the overall energy and experience of encounters in doing photography are what it's all about. The end result of the woman on Broadway, or this guy at the Starbucks are interesting but not amazing. But getting each shot had a build up, a better story leading up to it then what I could put into a frame.
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