Soft and strongToronto, ON
July 2010
About this photo: Thematic Photographic is celebrating candid this week. If you've got a candid shot you'd like to share - or if you just want to see what all the fuss is about - click here.On a good day, shooting in public is a bit of a highwire act. In this post-9/11 era of paranoia, pulling out a big lens in a wide-open space may not be the smartest thing to do.
But done carefully, with quick, unobtrusive camera technique and a specific focus on avoiding identifying features, public photography is still, if not easy, at least possible. And a good challenge.
So as my brother-in-law and I wandered through Toronto's Yorkdale Shopping Centre on a bright afternoon, I looked over his shoulder and saw Ms. Charmin here. I think he knew I wanted to shoot her before I did. I already had the camera in my hand, so I wheeled and shot. As you can see, composition, focus and exposure are more than a little off. This shot won't be winning any awards, and I highly recommend against clicking it to zoom in - it's just that lousy. In fact, I came pretty close to deleting it off the camera. I kept coming back to it, kicking myself for not being more meticulous.
But that's the thing with candid shots: You may not have the opportunity for meticulousness. When you have zero time to think things through, a flawed result is often better than no result at all. Because photography doesn't always have to be perfect. The world it records, after all, is far from it.
Your turn: Do you self-edit less-than-perfect shots out of your archives? Do you sometimes wish you had held onto something that didn't make the technical grade?
