In my last run at trying to do candid images as well as shots of built environments, I still found myself basically unwilling to shoot close pictures of people, however interesting I found them to look at, if they were looking in my direction. Even more so than ten years ago, folks are very alert to a camera pointed in their direction even in crowded public areas, and I think for good reason. The basic dilemma remains that the right thing to do is to ask if it’s ok; asking if it’s ok tends to kill whatever was interesting about people’s faces and facial expressions. Exaggerated posing has gotten worse in the age of Instagram.
I was still comfortable shooting larger images of people, buildings and street scenes where I was in the distance, especially if the people were looking away and were thus anonymized further. But people from behind are substantially less interesting subjects most of the time. This shot is an exception: the overall combination here of intersecting geometry, the timeliness of the subject, and the security guard worked for me.
The interesting verticals.