Sister Golden Hair Surprise

When I started doing my street photography downtown St John's 11 years ago not surprisingly I had some idea of what I was and wasn't going to do. One of the things I wasn't going to do was take portraits of young women. The point was that every photographer in the world takes photos of young women, I have too. That's where the beauty is after all, isn't it? Also there was the creep factor. As an older man I didn't want to ask a strange young women for fear they might take it wrong and feel frightened or threatened. But it was mostly that I wanted my focus to be different. And besides I'm bored and tired of the same old stuff over and over again! To put it rather politely I was going for character.

But one day that all changed...

I was downtown casually strolling around and every now and again I would stop, perhaps leaning up against a building resting and along came a young woman. She looked removed, you might say troubled and unhappy. As she came my way I fumbled with my camera a bit (I do this so people will see the camera and maybe get an idea what I'm up to) and as she approached I asked her: "excuse me I'm doing some street photography would you mind if I take your portrait"? By the time we finished our little session which lasted just 2 or 3 minutes she was lit up like a christmas tree.

Showing a little interest in someone; giving them a minute of your time can mean a lot to some people. Seeing this transformation meant a lot to me too. This little meeting made us both feel better and it made us both smile.  I've photographed many dozens of young women downtown since then. I'm always cautious about it but as you can see from the photos here they enjoyed it very much. And I did too!

Thanks for stopping by and please let me know what you think.


You can see the portraits of these young women and many more people on my Chasing the Light Fantastic website.