
Sitting in the cafeteria at school I noticed this young woman at the next table, fully enjoying her style and her companion projecting his (see below). They kindly consented to be photographed while they carried on their conversation.


I don’t know the history but there are several graffiti areas in the vicinity of Waterloo Station and the Southbank. I’ve previously shown the graffiti tunnel. I found more along the River Thames edge that had been turned into an open air, underground skate park.
Continuing on my walk down to the Javits Center, I kept taking pictures of people in the street, so now we’ve moved beyond an occasional ethical lapse into full-blown hypocrisy. But I liked the symmetry of the two men with their heavy bags, baseball caps, hands on hips, and smiles, with the shadows and trees splitting the image down the middle. Irresistible.
Contravening the street photography ethics previously mentioned, I took a few shots of this group as I passed, drawn by some of the dramatic gesturing. I heard the man on the left saying he wouldn’t continue the conversation with the participation of the man on the right and the woman’s rejoinder was that he would remain part of the conversation since he also cared about the baseball-cap man. Of course, I have no idea what they were really discussing but it was impassioned.
Back from my travels. Over the next week or so, I’ll be posting snapshots from my travels in New York and Chicago. This was a trip to catch up with friends and family and take care of NY personal business. So it was extremely fulfilling in those areas, not so productive on the photography front.
My current ethics of photography do not really include taking shots of people in the street without their consent and/or collaboration. In this case, I crouched down in front of him so he knew I was there and tourists were clearly photographing him with their phones from bad vantage points, and he was not complaining so I took it he was tacitly consenting. I will probably post a few other street shots over the coming days from this trip that contravene this personal rule of mine, where, for one reason or another, I felt taking the shot was validated in some way – we shall see…