Tuesday, March 6, 2007

The Fifth Law

I had nothing that day when I saw two girls, a bleached blonde and a green-dye job - kissing. I ducked in a doorway, the only decent angle I could find. I had just a second to guess an exposure, set the aperture and when I looked up there seemingly out of thin air was a Midget holding a can of Pepsi about two feet from my lens. On instinct I mashed the shutter, turned and with adrenalin pouring out my ears walked away and never looked back.


Crayola haired kissing girls. Pepsi touting Midget. Long strange shadows. I had one good shot that day I thought. I was the new Fellini, no doubt.

But the picture did not live up to expectations. I had caught the two kissing, but the blonde was obscured so you couldn't tell she was a girl. And the midget didn't really look like a midget - the sloping background and the effects of the wide angle lens had added two feet to his height.

In my mind I had seen a circus act but had taken a picture of three lovily people on a sunny afternoon. The only freak there that day I realized, was me. Somewhere in my quest to get "a shot" I had lost my humanity and had broken the fifth law of Street Photography: "Don't be a jerk". I would do my best not to let it happen again.

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