Here’s another photo from our South-​East-​Asia trip. The gist of today’s post: Ask first before you take a photo.

While some­times it is not pos­sible — or desir­able — to ask a per­son for per­mis­sion before tak­ing their photo (e.g. when the per­son is too far away, or when you’re going for can­dids, mean­ing you want to cap­ture the “nat­ural” situ­ation, without the aware­ness that a photo is being taken), it should be done as often as pos­sible. This could be as little as mak­ing eye con­tact, smil­ing, point­ing at your cam­era and put­ting a big ques­tion mark on your face, or as much as intro­du­cing your­self, get­ting to know the per­son and explain­ing why you would like to take a photo.

That way you’re not only being polite, but you also pay respect to the person’s private sphere and their feel­ings. Do take “no” for an answer. But more than often — you’ll be sur­prised — people will be flattered that you want take a pho­to­graph of them! Ask them politely, and be hon­est why exactly you would like to make them the main sub­ject in your pic­ture. For instance, let them know that they look great, inter­est­ing, funny, or that you are amazed by what they are doing, etc. It does take some amount of “cour­age”, but do give it a shot! And make the world a bet­ter place in the pro­cess ;-)

Com­ing back to the photo, it shows a gold smith in Vien­tiane (the cap­ital of Laos); I just thought he looked really cool with his sunglasses and just the gen­eral express­ing in face, doing his crafty job in the smoul­der­ing sum­mer heat. And — he didn’t mind.