Musings of a Lost Paparazza Career

[F, Calla & Luca]

Our monthly assignment is to photograph strangers and I learned a lot in one day. For a long time I've been contemplating my next life stage if I retire completely. I now know that being a paparazza is not the career for me. We had debated in our group discussion if taking pictures of strangers was OK. The consensus was photos are OK in a public place but you can always ask.

http://www.doodlekisses.com/forum/topics/august-assignment-portrait...

My outing started off with a bang, literally, as someone ran her car over a curb ripping some things from underneath.

My observations were as follows. If you ask someone if you can take their picture they ask some more questions. I felt obliged to be truthful and the fact that it was for a photography group on a dog site did not allay any fears. Luckily it all stayed friendly, unlike some paparazzi encounters.

So, I tried to be surreptitious and not raise the camera to my eye. This is a sample of what I got. What did I think, the camera needed to be angled at 90 degrees from my cart? Never mind all the out of focus, just plain bad shots I got that actually included people.Some from my car,while stopped at lights, were awful too.

I went to a well known countrywide store since it was where I could see many strangers. I am not mentioning the name, although you can figure that out in a jiffy, so maybe they won't ban me for life.  It also, being just over the border in New York state has a very diverse population. There are many Hasidic Jews who shop here. I find the culture interesting and tried to be respectful. I learned that although they may have good connections with God they spend a great deal of time on their cell phones.Throughout the store I saw Hasidic men, not women,on their cell phones. They often dress their children in the same outfits, perhaps since they tend to have large families it's easier to identify their own family.  I am not using my images here since I don't want them on the front page of DK but these images are already distributed on the web.

And I think that maybe cleaning supplies are the main reason folks go to this store, it is a main reason for me. It seems we are obsessed with cleanliness, which as we have been told is next to godliness. Often think I have bought a lifetime supply of something and yet one day I need to return and buy more of that thing. Good genes I guess.

As part of my mission, I got photographic evidence that Karen is right when she says never buy dog treat from a big box store. Made in China. There were many more. Yet why do I sometimes but food for me in this store : (

And things can get subtle, like this treat manufactured in The USA with globally sourced ingredients

The good news was that since I was preoccupied with taking photos, finding evidence for the food group, thinking about a blog and being stealthy, I bought far less than I usually do. I also learned once again that writing a blog, while trying not to hurt anyone's feelings and yet attempting to be funny is a lot of work. My hat's off to those who do it regularly, you know who you are.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Thank you so much Bonnie. Not everyone agreed with you : ) You are pretty funny yourself, master photographer indeed.

[Bonnie and Kona]

F, You have done it! You wrote an interesting, funny blog and didn't offend. I was dying thinking of you taking photos from your waist. You are the master photographer and stooped to this new technique. It cracked me up. It's the kind of thing I might do because I don't even take pictures.

You present such an interesting dilemma with this topic. How does one discretely take another's photo so as not to offend? I am sure I don't want people taking my picture without my knowledge, but there are also some pretty funny people out there whose picture I have been tempted to take. haha. hmmm. I will have to snoop in the photography group again this month to see what your talented photographers came up with.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Truly, Karen, we can hope. But I was just reading about the Cyclospora cases caused by sales imported from Mexico. And on it goes.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I was absolutely baffled as to what kind of store would sell cleaning supplies and big gaudy costume jewelry, but that bag of Kirkland cleared it right up for me. Thank you for providing photojournalistic proof (is that even a word) of the reasons we shouldn't buy food for our pets in these kinds of places. As to buying food for ourselves there, let's hope we can count on the fact that the laws governing food intended for human consumption are much stricter than those for pet products. :)

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

This is GREAT, F.  Glad you didn't photo my dh over the curb in the jeep -  for the second time - same place! Good teaching - subtle - about looking at ingredient sources.

[Lori, Quincy & Frankie]

Somehow I saw your lens less photos before this blog-so i had no idea what these pictures were-or why you took them!  LOL...fun blog and adventure!  

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Fun blog, F!  I've never photographed strangers...could be an interesting month.

[Sheila & Finnley]

Great blog F ! Glad that you have your cleaning supplies, Aaand a new respect for getting a stealth picture !

Keep on spying ! LOL

[F, Calla & Luca]

Thanks, Camilla.

[Camilla and Darwin]

I love your adventure! I'm excited about the assignment but a bit scared as well. That is probably a good thing. :-) 

I like the idea of not using the viewfinder to take pictures and being surprised. I'm going to have to try that. He he. Great blog!