A couple of weeks ago now I was on my way into Hamilton for our second field trip for my Landscape Photography course. Now the title of this blog may be deceiving from the first sentence here, as you will see this has nothing to do with lessons learned in the classroom.
I headed into Hamilton early in the morning and River Road was beautiful, if I had more time I would have gotten out of the car to take some pictures along the river but since I did not I did the next best thing and stopped my car in the middle of the road and took the picture through my windshield :).....
Our class met at York and James, where we had a short briefing by our teacher Terry McDonald from "luxBorealis fine art photography" on what to look for in shooting cityscapes, the picture of the market being one of his examples on how to create an interesting shot.....so off we went to find some cool cityscapes...
Ok so as you can see I am not really taking pictures of "cityscapes" more like "city things", and this I can't help, it's how I see things through the lens left to my own will....but that's not to say I can not do a proper city scape....
Although I must admit the reason I was excited about being downtown with my camera is the people....let's face it I am a wedding/lifestyle photographer so my main attraction is people and downtown has a lot of interesting possibility's
As I am leaning against Jackson Square across from the Lister Block I had decided to take some "people pictures", my aim was to be as unobtrusive as possible and to get the shots with a candid type of feel. As I am doing this a man about my age pass's by....I had not taken his picture because he didn't look the part, which is to say he looked "normal" like some guy from suburbia just hitting downtown on a Saturday morning for the market or whatever....he stops and very politely asks me if he could inquire as to what I was taking pictures of, to which I replied without a second thought, "homeless people". He then asked me how I knew the people I was taking the picture of where in fact homeless, I kind of shrugged and replied it was because they looked it. After a second or two he then pointed out a young couple walking towards us and asked "Are they homeless?"....and although they where in track pants and older jackets I assumed in that quick second that they where not homeless probably just poor, so I replied simply "no". He then asked me "So, am I homeless?".....this struck me as weird but again I humored him and told him simply, no, to which he said as he turned and walked away...."well I am". I was kind of dumbstruck as I realized that I had insulted this fellow by my assumptions as I stood there in my leather jacket, ripped jeans (but bought that way), hair makeup & nails done in my kick ass shoes (as always) and my very expensive camera equipment......Now with that said and telling you honestly that I felt bad.....for a second or two.....that was my lesson in humility for the day. I will still take pictures of people downtown, but apparently they don't have to be homeless because who can really tell, crazy or with character works for me :)....BUT I will not hurt anyone's feelings or lead anyone to believe that I am better than they are again and if asked I will simply reply that I am taking pictures of people of "interest"......Now I leave you with one last picture that sums up downtown in a nutshell..... :)
