People

It's tough for me to photograph people. More to the point it's terrifying. I have little experiencing with determining the "decisive moment" and probably wouldn't know what it was if it came and hit me in the head. Regardless, I find people fascinating, especially as they are going about their lives interacting with one another in small groups and intimate public settings. People are what life is all about, not just architecture and sunsets and views of the world in which there are no indications of people, or of life in general. It seems to me it's important to document people in any culture to give real meaning to everything else you photograph.

I was at a local Whole Foods today doing part of my regularly weekend shopping when I happened to pass by this small built-in sports bar. Before January this used to be small brewed coffee and chocolate stand. We used to get Lake Champlain chocolates there, and I mean six or more bars at a time. When they remodeled this area into the sports bar all of that disappeared, including the chocolates. Staff promised that they'd put the chocolates elsewhere, but it's been some six months since they started this conversion and it's never come back. As for me, I'm a chocoholic, not an alcoholic.

This was taken back in mid-January when I was waiting to go by bus to visit my parents in Atlanta. People were doing what people always do when waiting to board just about anything, and that's milling about in the middle of their own thoughts.

I stopped off by Orlando's city hall looking for anyone representing Occupy Orlando. I found two people, but they were somewhat reticent, so I left them alone. A small park is built into the front of city hall, and while I was wondering around looking I came across Channel 9 conducting an interview. Once again their interest in their common task seemed to drop an invisible bubble around them, a bubble that insulated them from the world so that they gave me no notice, even as I held up my E-P2 to photograph them.

Families are interesting, especially when their interacting. I rather liked the poses of everyone, especially the mom on one corner who seems to be intently listening to the older boy on the opposite corner. I have no idea what was transpiring between them.

There's an Olympus using photographer who lives half way around the world named Robin Wong. He seems to show no fear when he's out photographing, especially when people are his subject. I'm sure there's a lot more to his technique, but if I do nothing else I need to lose the fear. And from there work on all the other important skills required for good cultural photography.