Portraiting strangers: the first failures
Today, after some cloudy day, the sun was quite good for some photos. During my lunch break I took my camera and I went to Trafalgar Square. Even if the sun was high, the light was not bad at all. Trafalgar is always full of people and amongst them there are some who are not running around.
Last week I jumped the gap of stopping a perfect stranger, asking if I could have taken a picture. I was so nervous that I just took a bad portrait, before smiling and running away… what a jerk I am! But made stronger by that episode (and ready to remember myself something like “next time, take more than one picture!”) I was ready to go.
To my partial defense I have to admit that I did not find anyone really interesting (and the light was too strong, and the grapes was tart of course). Then I saw her. She was around 50, with a pair of glasses and something in the way she was looking around that hit me. I looked carefully around, imagining a frame around my sight and I was happy. I get near her and I told her something like: “Excuse me if I disturb you. Can I have one minute of your time?“. Polite. She looked at me (X-rayed me to be precise) staring for a while. She smiled and me and, after few more seconds she answered: “No“.
Imagine the moment. I mean… if she had looked worried, disappointed or annoyed I would have understood, but this was hard to digest.
I knew that this part would have been the worst (why didn’t I chose to take pictures of pigeons, or fruit?) but the first “No” hurt. I hope tomorrow I will not remember that smile and that denial…
anyhow the grapes was tart!
At least some days ago I was able to get this photo… I like it very much!
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