Sweet Surprises – Land of the Giants

Street photography is fickle. You never know when you are going find that next image. Most often, however, when I get something good I recognize it in the field. The image, or series of images, sticks in my mind. I hear Jay Maisel asking, speaking in his soft curious voice,  “did you know you got something good when you took this?”. And usually the answer is Yes.

But sometimes I am surprised.

Sometimes I find my nuggets where I least expect them – in images that I hardly remember taking, in images that registered “nothing special” or “that was a good try”.

This was my mind-narrative behind this image. Attracted by the mirrors and clear design of the display, I was working some silly self portraits. After giving up in my own portrait, a girl walked up next to me and starting taking her pictures. I stepped to the side and took 3 images including the girls shoulder and back of the camera. Nothing stood out in my mind and I quickly moved on. What had happened in the field is that I had left too much in the frame. I wasn’t able to focus on distillation of the images impact in real-time. My surprise in finding this hidden image tells me what I need to work on.