"If we think that they may get upset for us taking the shot, we should put away those assumptions and go for the shot anyways. If we are concerned of offending people, take the shot anyways."
Kind of arrogant, no?
Indeed, very much so.
It's invasion of privacy, whether legally defined as such or not. Everybody knows perfectly well when they are screwing somebody up, and as far as I can see, that's very often very much the motivation, mixed up with "gee, look how brave I am!" However, if you ask the 'subject' and they say okay, then no sweat - shoot.
Photographing the socially inept, the down 'n' outs, the maimed and the ugly, the dwarfed, and all the other involutary, disadvantaged eye-magnets that exist isn't terribly nice. Regarding Ray's Ladyboys, well that's a bit different, because I expect that they are looking for attention and feel part of the carnival of the street, so you give 'em some gratification, and in their own country, I expect they could just as easily cut you to bits if they felt annoyed...
In my own case, I have a wish to collect pix of beautiful strangers, but I face two major problems:
a. there are very few walking the streets;
b. those that do seem to be accompanied by husbands etc. and there's little point in getting into 'conversations' for the sake of a silly website picture.
In fact I was mistaken: there are actually
three problems, the third being that I wouldn't have taken very kindly to some dickhead with a camera sticking it in my wife's face.
I don't exclude my quest from some level of blame/guilt, only that I feel there's no bad intention or mockery - anything but; it's meant as a compliment, especially in my case, because I have so much past to draw from, filter and compare. Maybe that's why I see so few suitable candidates in the street...
Frankly, the whole damned thing is a bog of moral insecurity and uncertainty best left alone and to history, to a time when 'subjects' didn't know any better.
Actually, I think an overpowering desire to do 'street' is possbily a sense of personal lack. In my own case, were my wife still around, it wouldn't have entered my mind to seek my 'beauts'. (They are) "substitutes, yeah, substitutes; that's all they are," is a quotation from one of our latter-day street philosophers, Bob Dylan. Sums it up beautifully. Maybe it's actually a matter of 'get a life'.
Rob C