Shooting my Stranger #1
I’ve been meaning to properly embark on my own 100 Strangers Project (see also 100 Strangers group on Flickr) since I’ve been engaging more with the people I’ve been shooting lately, but ‘normal’ street photography has been getting in the way. Or, if I were to be more honest, I’d say I simply lack the guts. Every time I went out with the intention of going beyond candids or smiling-and-shooting, I came back feeling defeated.
This is Luke, who made things much easier by actually approaching me first, asking what I was finding so interesting on the other side of the road. I initially noticed him as a figure on the phone, at the corner of my peripheral vision during the 15 minutes or so I spent in the drizzle under my umbrella, snipping (as much as I could with a 23(=35)mm!) human traffic as they jaywalked across towards me. He’s from the Punjab state of India, currently in Singapore on a one-year work stint with a ‘computer design’ company as a coder.
He asked if he could also take a photo of me, and since he happily obliged me with my request, I agreed. Then he asked, “How about you and me together?” “I’m afraid not!” I laughed. He’s still a stranger to me, after all.
