Aftermath: Reactions By Strangers After Being Photographed

After my last post about a girl who tried to give me a guilt trip after she became a subject of my street photography, I thought it would be fun to show a few other images where I got busted, and share the stories of the aftermath.

1. Tourists

While shooting in the tourist district of our town with my Speed Graphic one cold winter day, I took this photo:

The Girl: (In a happy voice) "Hey! Don't take our picture!"
Me: Too late.
The Woman on the right: Are you shooting for VisitDuluth?

I'm not entirely sure if I gave a response to that last question, but it was an easy out, so I think I took it.

2. Jerry

While in one of the seedier sections of town, I made this image:

The guy called for me to come over and talk to him. I did. His name was Jerry and he used to be a photographer himself. He inquired about doing a portrait of him and his girlfriend. I'm not much of a portraitist, but I gave him a card anyways. He also gave me his contact info, which was simply Jerry from The Kozy. For those of you who aren't familiar with Duluth, The Kozy is pretty much universally accepted as being the scariest bar in town.

I really should keep a print of him in my bag in case I run into him again. I random street photo that gave me insider access to underbelly of the city could be interesting.

3. The Faux Beggar

I'm not sure what this kid was trying to accomplish by pretending to be a beggar, but when I took his photo he just screamed "Whoa!" and ran off to him mommy.

4. The Cold Old Woman

One winter day at a downtown bus stop I took the following photo.

If only every bust could be received like this one. The elderly woman on the right must have found it really special that I wanted to take her photo since as I walked by she grabbed me by the arm and gave me a hug. Apparently I made her day by paying attention to her, which in a way could be an indicator that she doesn't have much in her life, which makes it sort of sad if true.

5. Carnie Justice

This one brought down the wrath of the carnies onto me. Luckily, it didn't end up with me on my knees being asked to pick a number while a rickety old handcart was being pulled in circles around me.

A younger carnie approached me and asked if I was with the newspaper. I said I wasn't, and he asked for my name. I gave him my first name, and he followed up by asking for my last name. After I gave my polish tongue twister of a last name he looked kind of confused, and asked why I was taking pictures of their rides. I could already tell at this point that he was uncomfortable confronting me and probably wasn't even sure what he could do with the information he collected. I told him I was a hobbyist and he left.

A moment later the tattooed woman approached me and we had our own conversation. I made it clear that I in fact wasn't out taking photos of their rides for the sole purpose of exposing them as being unsafe on a gossip blog, and we parted ways.