I'm today still irritated by the salesperson at Tiimari who didn't understand the law about the right of individuals to take photos in public places in Finland. In fact, I drafted a column on the topic, but I'm afraid the text is too angry to be publishable. (I hope the editor to whom I sent the text does not read this blog. Or perhaps it would be good if he did.)
In any case, I took some photographs also today, and nobody stopped me. I didn't have problems even with enduring the looks of passerbys when taking photographs on a street. (Perhaps I'm becoming too sensitive to the potential harassment towards photographers doing their thing.)
Snow is slowly melting, and this generates interesting patterns, such as on the chairs here in the first image. Secondly, I took yet another photograph of the staircase I discussed here on Monday, but I was quite busy also today to have time for a lot of exploring. And finally, here is a night image, taken yesterday. It was good to go out for a walk at night. Now that the influenza has more or less passed, I'm once again keen on taking long walks out in the nature.
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At Hidden Valley, Christmas Eve
7 hours ago
4 comments:
I definitely like your photos when you're angry :)
This happens all the time, was so forever and won't ever stop: people are suspicious of things they don't understand.
Let's face it: For most people our behaviour does not make sense at all. Take photos every day, take them of things "normal" (i.e. non-photographing) people would never consider, invest money and time in photographing and processing, finally post them on the Internet for free??? Must be stupid, huh? And if not, it must mean something sinister :)
It is indeed interesting to ponder the worldview of "photographers" vs. "non-photographers". As you say, when taking photographs you start to see differently, and find it valuable to explore the world with a camera, investing a lot of time and even money to this.
But for those that don't have the photography bug, this can be strange, even unfathomable, and thus potentially dangerous.
It is as if we were stealing the soul of the world with a camera...
I remember one night having photographed the headlights of a car. Just so, because they looked interesting. Suddenly a window on the house opposite opened, someone called something out, asking me what I did. Well, I got a little irritated and went on, photographing other things like shop windows, etc.
Suddenly someone stood in front of me and asked me aggressively why I had taken a photograph of his car, told me I had no right to do so. Turned out he was a migrant who had been involved in a car accident the day before. His car might have had some blemishes that I did not recognize, don't know, but he suspected me to be the owner of the other car, trying to record evidence. He was only afraid to be sued.
Fact is, that photography has some uses that are much stronger rooted in people's minds than art, and collecting evidence is one of them.
And there is more to it. In our societiey Art is not a part of people's lifes. Art is believed to happen in studios, to be done by Artists that wear funny caps and generally are imagined as recognizable. Maybe we should wear T-shirts that read "Artist at work - Don't disturb" :)
A t-shirt, a cap or a vest saying "Artist at work - Don't disturb" sounds like a great idea!
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