2005-04-18 - Bubble Boy

With age comes self-awareness; which is why children make such great, natural subjects.

Expanding on yesterday's commentary, I think it is really unfortunate that, in order to capture moments like these, photographers have to risk being harassed or labeled as weirdos. Nobody seemed concerned about me taking photos on this particular occasion but I still felt a little bit uncomfortable - not because I thought I was doing anything wrong but because I feared people wouldn't understand what I was doing or my intentions for the photos. I suppose this is something that a lot of candid photographers face but I don't know how to approach it. Asking permission to take photos is not always practical and often ruins the spontaneity of the moment. Maybe I just need to develop a thicker skin.

From a technical viewpoint, I'm pretty happy with this photo. The light is quite good and I even got some sky reflections in the bubbles. If I was to change anything, I'd get rid of the person in the background to the right of the frame because I find it to be a distracting element. In fact, the more I look at it, the more it bothers me, so I will probably do a bit of editing later.