Union Square is a great place to watch people: it's full of all sorts of New Yorkers relaxing, waiting to meet someone, showing off, or protesting something or other, as well as musicians performing and street vendors doing their stuff. It seems to be a magnet for photographers as well, every time I go there I see guys with the big lenses prowling around. A couple of weeks ago I went down on a Sunday to have a go myself.
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| Serious business |
I shot this in Madison Square Park, a few blocks up from Union Square. These two guys were sitting in front of the Shake Shack, which has a good reputation and always has a long line of customers (I've never eaten there though!). They looked like they were just hanging out, but those sunglasses ...
Looking around carefully made me think that some people want to be photographed (probably including Mr Punk, above). I am still too much of a coward to contemplate asking someone if I can take their picture without becoming seriously uncomfortable, but you don't see a hat like this in New York every day, so I did my best. It turned out the guy had a story to tell: the standout part about the hat isn't the hat itself, but the necklace attached to it. He explained that it's an African necklace made from human wrist bones, and his family collects them to keep them out of the hands of people who don't value them. That turned out to be not at all what I was expecting to hear, and I was pleased that my first real attempt to ask a stranger for a photo was such a success (he explained that the hat was pretty ordinary, but he "takes it out to air it" once in a while). Moral: some people definitely are looking to draw attention to themselves.
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| On the lookout |
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