On Approaching Strangers

I don't approach people with children. Or those who are encumbered with goods: if they're weighed down with grocery bags in each hand, I let them get to where they can unburden themselves, in peace.

I don't stop people who walk with purpose, who have a focused stare about where they're going.

I don't interrupt somebody who is reading or typing on his or her tablet or smartphone. I let them concentrate on the task at hand. Nor do I bother someone who is obviously talking to another on said device.

I don't intervene in a conversation. I don't try to break the bonds of communication.

I don't bother someone who is eating. No one wants to be photographed with a mouthful of food.

I do take "no" for an answer.

I am less than halfway through the 100 days in which I promised myself that I would overcome my shyness to ask 100 complete strangers to pose for my camera. More than a dozen have said no: one person said yes, but, sadly, in the glare of the sunshine, as I showed him the photo, neither of us saw that on the display screen, his eyes were shut. I didn't use the photo because I don't wish to make any of my subjects look bad.

As of last Saturday, 53 strangers appear in my project. Some asked me what I planned to do with the photos, and I was direct and honest with my answer: he or she would appear with 99 other strangers, online, in a Flickr album. There would be no names, no information, no identification other than his or her face. Some chatted after the photo was taken, and let me know a little more about them. This made them a little more than strangers, but we were strangers when the photo was taken.

Some gave me their names. I repeated his or her name, but didn't retain the information. I didn't forget on purpose: I'm just really bad with names.

One invited me to join her at the patio table she occupied. I declined, not wanting to take up any more time than I had in discussing my project and taking the photo.

One followed me around for a while, having felt he made a connection, wanting me to know more of his story. I felt uncomfortable, having started to regret asking for his photo, now feeling like I owed him something.

I don't ask people who appear to be living on the street. I don't want to come across as though I'm exploiting them or for them to feel that I would owe them something in return for the favour.

A friend of mine, who has looked at my collection, commented on how the faces I have shot seem to be predominantly of one type of demographic. There are a lot of white strangers. The fact of the matter is that I have approached a wide variety of people, of different ages, genders, skin tones, and cultures. The majority of those with a darker colour of skin than mine have said no to my request.

And Ottawa, for its cultural diversity, is still largely a white city. This project has shown me this truth.

You might also note that the majority of these strangers are young. I think this generation are more open to social media and being digitally captured than someone who is older. After having been rejected by several seniors, I have avoided bothering more.

While I have tried to approach as many men as women, I have found that women are more likely to agree to me capturing their image than men. This fact surprised me, as I thought that a woman would be more suspicious of a strange man asking to photograph them.

I thought that this project would become easier as I progressed, and in a way it has. While I am shy about approaching strangers, and each day it does take me a while to gather the courage to walk up and talk to someone, each day it takes less time to gather up that courage. And, once I get started, I have no problem going up to the next stranger.

But I do hesitate with each person or group of people. As I walk down a street or stand on a corner and watch the people approach, I observe them and I think, should I ask this person? Are they likely to agree to my request?

I filter through the crowd: she's carrying bags of groceries. She isn't going to want to stop. He's walking with a small child: he's not going to want to be distracted on this busy street. He's going to want to give his full attention to the child. She's texting someone. He's walking quickly and isn't looking around: he has somewhere that he wants to be.

I often approach people who are waiting at a bus stop. If the bus isn't imminent, he or she has time on his or her hands (as long as the person isn't on a device or chatting with someone else).

I stop people who appear to be strolling, who don't appear to be in a rush.

I approach people who are in a group of no more than three or four, if it looks like they're in a good mood and aren't fully engaged in a conversation.

I have approached people resting on benches. I have approached people who are sitting, alone, on patios—either enjoying the day or who seem to be leisurely reading, who seem to be relaxed.

I always ask, before saying anything else, if I can take a moment of their time. If the person says no, I apologize for my interruption, and it's over. If he or she says yes, I introduce myself and explain my purpose in less than 10 seconds, and then ask for the photo. If I get a "no," I thank the person for his or her time and bid a good day. If I am permitted to take the photo, I do it quickly, in less than 10 seconds--sometimes 20 seconds, if I can see that the photo didn't turn out (I've only had to reshoot three times) I show the photo on the display immediately after shooting the photo, so my subject can see what I plan to use. I want the stranger to feel comfortable with what I will post online.

If asked, I provide a business card and explain how the person can see the project. I thank the person: often, several times. I bid a good day.

I'm 47 photos away from the end of this project and already I can anticipate the sadness at capturing stranger number 100. This project has been the most challenging of any photo project I have undertaking, but at meeting the people of Ottawa, I have learned that we have some great people in our city.

Music Monday: Stand By Me

This weekend, my youngest daughter and I attended Comiccon, Ottawa's popular pop-culture event, where folks can meet some of their sci-fi, action, and comic-book heros—and where many people dress up as their favourite heroes. It was the first time that I've been to such an event, not counting the Star Trek convention that I attended in my early 20s.

Indeed, there were several Star Trek favourites at Comiccon, including Johnathan Frakes (Commander William Riker), Marina Sirtis (Councillor Deanna Troi), and Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura).

Wil Wheaton was also there, though these days he's more famous for being himself than he was for being Wesley Crusher.

I didn't see any of my Star Trek icons this weekend—we were there for my daughter, and she was only interested in seeing Billie Piper, who played Rose Tyler on Doctor Who. She has been clinging to the photo of her and Ms. Piper ever since.

My daughter did express an interest in seeing Wil Wheaton, but we never did. I did, however, get a chance to try The Clocktower Pub's tribute wheat ale, Hefe Wheaton, which was quite delicious, but we didn't see Mr. Wheaton himself (though, he was in the next partition, taking photos with fans, while we lined up for photos with Billie Piper).

My daughter asked me if she could see the movie that shot Wil Wheaton to stardom, the 1986 film, "Stand By Me." Sure, I said: we'd look for it on Netflicks, perhaps watch it this weekend. The next day, as we were shopping in the Glebe, fortune had it that we saw the DVD of the film in a rummage bin. Five dollars.

I had forgotten how good Wil Wheaton was in that movie. He and River Phoenix made that film unforgettable. And my daughter absolutely loved it.

I wish we had taken the time to meet with Wil Wheaton, so that we could have told him how good he was.

Of course, listening to the closing music of the film reminded me of the passing of singer, Ben E. King. The power of his voice and the sweet melody make the song, "Stand By Me," as unforgettable as the film itself.

And so, seeing how my weekend tied itself together in such a way, with my daughter taking me to Comiccon, drinking the beer named after Wil Wheaton, who attended the show, finding a copy of the film that made him a success, listening to the song by the artist we just lost, I couldn't help but share the song for Music Monday.

Enjoy.



Happy Monday!

Oh, Wil, what have they done to you?

Photo Friday: Trains of Yesteryear

Before he died, my dad asked me if I wanted to have his camera when he was gone. I gave him a curt "no," partly because, at the time, I was a bit cheesed at him because he was being a bit of a putz by telling me he was diagnosed with prostate cancer but wasn't going to try to have it treated, and that he really wanted me to come to a Brown family reunion because he was going to show up and he didn't know if he would ever be gathered with his siblings and children again.

He didn't make an appearance at the previous Brown reunion, when I was there. I gave him a "no" to the upcoming reunion with the same bluntness as I had about the camera.

"Prostate cancer, at your early stage, is easily treatable," I had told him. "If you really cared to see people at future gatherings, you'd take care of yourself." I didn't go to the reunion. He died the following year, but not as a result of the cancer. His heart broke, instead.

I didn't get the camera, but I really didn't want it. He had owned it since the 50s or 60s: I think it was a Leica rangefinder camera, but I had never paid much attention to it, had maybe only held it once or twice. I had learned to shoot with an SLR, and when he asked me if I wanted it, I already had my trusty Minolta X-700, which had travelled around Canada, the United States, Europe, Mexico, and Southeast Asia.

I use cameras, I had told him: I don't collect them.

When he died, my sister and I cleaned out his apartment but we never came across the camera. Apparently, he had found someone else to take it, and he had already given it away. We found very few photos, and those we had found went into a pile to share with other relatives, or to throw out. I think my sister kept the few photos that we found of his children. Looking through those few images, I saw very little that told me about the life he lived, away from me and my sisters.

As we finished sorting the major items in his small apartment and had finally moved to his storage closet, we found a plastic bag that contained boxes of processed slides and one roll of negatives. The bag had been stashed with other odds and ends, as though they were parts of his life that he wanted to hold onto but didn't have a place in which to include with his everyday possessions.

In the dim apartment light, we didn't want to squint to see what images the slides held. I had a slide projector at home, and so I agreed to take the bag home with me, where I would look at each slide and deem whether any of them were worth keeping, perhaps even printable. I would share photos of people with the subjects, if I could identify or find them. Only one box had a date and that was 1971, when I was six, so I thought that it might be difficult to find everybody (assuming that there was anyone in the photos).

When I got the bag home, I didn't look at them right away because I would have had to dig out my slide projector (I used to shoot slide film too, but when I became a dad myself, I started using C-41—colour print—film), and I had other priorities. And so, the bag sat for weeks, was moved to the basement, and eventually, forgotten.

Cleaning out my basement over the past couple of weeks, I realized that I had accumulated a lot of junk in the ensuing 14 years. When I came across the long-forgotten bag, I took it to my bedroom and placed it with my camera gear and my digital scanner. I promised myself that I would start looking at the slides, would see what my dad thought was worth hanging onto.

My dad loved trains, would sit near crossings and stations, checking timetables and identifying engine models. As a kid, on weekends when he would visit us, he would drive us to the crossing in Bells Corners (it no longer exists: the rail line has been diverted), promising to buy us a treat at the Dairy Queen if we behaved ourselves until the train came. For a "special" trip, he would drive to the train station in Smiths Falls, where he never told us there was a Hershey Chocolate factory.

The first box of slides that I opened contained images of trains. My dad would have been standing close to the track. Many of the engines were slightly blurred, as though the camera shutter couldn't handle the speed of the locomotive or my dad shook as he pressed the shutter release. I quickly glanced at the slides and returned them to their case.

The same was found in the next box, and the box after that. In a couple, I pulled shots that were taken from a train, my dad shooting out the window as he rolled along. These images seemed somewhat artistic, and so I put them aside. I saw a slide of my old home, on Bowhill Avenue: it must have been taken shortly after we moved in—the neighbourhood seemed new.

The trains seemed to be what my dad wanted to preserve, were the only images that he held onto, even if he had no prints of them, didn't put them in any place of honour.

There are perhaps 400 to 500 images in those slide cases. This week, I may have looked at 50 of them. Three of them, I posted for Wordless Wednesday. Maybe, as I continue looking, I'll find some hidden gems. But for now, I'll take a moment to remember the man who loved trains.

Horaceville

Two days before I visited the site, I didn't know it existed.

My photo meetup group had planned a shoot at the site, but I was unable to go. A model was to be in a period piece, or something, and would be photographed around the ruins.

Because I love ruins, I was more interested in the location than the model shoot. And because I had never heard of the place, I made a search for it on Google to find out where it was. Perhaps, late one night, I would come out here and shoot the stars with the ruins in the foreground.

So, two days after I declined the invitation to the model meetup, when I dropped my youngest daughter in Richmond for some archery practice with her Girl Guides group, I raced up, through Kanata, toward, Dunrobin, and on to Pinhey's Point.

And when I saw the structures, I knew I had found my next Where In Ottawa challenge.

It took only about 48 hours for the challenge to be solved: sort of the time it took for me to learn of Horaceville's existence (that's the name of the estate) and to get out and explore it. Congratulations to Marc, who correctly identified this site.

Here are the clues, explained:

1. An estate named for a son—Hamnett Kirkes Pinhey, an English merchant, was awarded the 1000-acre land along the Ottawa River for his service during the Napoleonic Wars. He settled on the land and named the estate after his son, Horace.
2. Hamnett's Ottawa River view—the stone house, built between 1822 and 1825, overlooks the Ottawa River. Today, from its banks, you can see Kanata to the southeast.

One of the things that I love, in posting the Where In Ottawa contest, is that I get to learn about new places or discover the past about places I've seen many times before. I hope you enjoy learning with me.

The next contest is Monday, June 1.

Wordless Wednesday: Random Photos from My Dad