As I’m sure anyone who knows me is aware, photography is a hobby of mine (In a way it’s also a form of artistic expression), mostly thanks to my brother Jaap’s inspiration.
So anyway, this weekend the weather was great and I took quite a number of photos. A lot of those photos were at the seaside, since it was such a great place to be. While taking photos as the beach I had a bit of a thought about something…
As a photographer, I record things that catch my eye in time for me to get my camera pointed in the right direction and take the photo. As a heterosexual male, my eye is rather easily caught by attractive women. And here we arrive at a bit of a dilemma, I find it difficult to take pictures of people I don’t know because I always worry a bit that they may object. This means there are many photos I see and never take, because I’m a little weirded out by the thought of taking photos of people I don’t know. There was one lady today I would have loved to have taken an on-the-spot portrait of, she had the most amazing blue eyes, but there’s no way I was just going to walk up to her and ask if I can take her photo. Hell, I even find it difficult to take photos of people I do know without there being some sort of event like a party underway that I’m taking photos of.
So how do I deal with this problem? It is a problem, because I feel I’m missing out of some amazing photographs.