Subject Looking at Photographer: Or Not

I have been a street photographer for more than 50 years. At the start, it was just my hobby to take pictures of people as they go about their daily lives. Then I learned about the “techniques” of telling a story through moments frozen on film. Interestingly, at that point the people stopped being the center of my attention, but rather it was their interaction with the environment that appealed to me.

And it was for that very reason that I decided not to take photos of people’s faces directly, especially avoiding them looking at me or my camera. That is not always the case with street photographers. Many click when the person is looking at them, with special attention to capturing the eyes or the look. For me that is intrusive.

But there are moments when I click too soon or too late and the subject notices my presence and looks at me. I usually do not keep those photos, but not always.

…. So, two days ago snow storms passed over the high desert of Arizona. Change in temperature and colour is always a celebration when one lives in the desert. I was enjoying snow fall when a falcon perched on the chimney top of a house more than 50 meters away. I watched it for a few minutes admiring the slim and perfect lines of his contour against the cloudy sky.  The snow fall stopped a few minutes later and the falcon was still perched upon the chimney top.

So I grabbed my Nikon F3, put on my favorite 1960s Nikkor – P 180 mm telephoto, and took a few photos with the lens full open at 2.8.

When I looked at the prints, I noticed that just before taking off the falcon had seen me and that I had captured that look.

So, I thought about moments when the subject of my interest had looked at me, despite my efforts to escape being noticed.

Here are a few:

Falcon looking: This is what I wanted to capture – a profile against the sky.

And this is the cropped frame of that amazing falcon look (with a lot of resolution loss given the age of the lens)!

Notre Dame, Paris: I saw this woman walking in a motion similar to the body language of some statues on the front of the cathedral. I waited till she came in line with the background statues but she did see me….

Sheep say “cheese”:  This domestic animal had a very humanoid face… I wanted to have a perfect angle but it did see me try. Perhaps the look got better because of the curiosity it exhibited toward my medium format classic camera…

Brutus, Baltimore: Yes, that was his name as I heard his master call him. But Brutus had no interest in moving, and even gave me a scolding look when I clicked!

Turkish street dancer, Vienna: Brutus was not the only one with that look when I tried to take a photo!

Siena, Italy: This is perhaps my favorite as it shows cultural attitude. A group of young man was celebrating in the street of this medieval city, and I wanted to get the building and the women on the balcony as background.  But the young men saw me and decided to reciprocate by taking a picture of me taking a picture of them! Then, when I spoke with them, the guy taking the picture told me “It was not a picture of you that I wanted to take, but of that antica camera you are using!”

I took that photo with a 1948 Rolleiflex TLR camera….

January 20, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017