journal features

photographing strangers on the street

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Vancouver, 2001.10.13

Today I took photos of strangers on the street. An English couple wanted to know who I though I was, pulling a stunt like walking up to the seated half of the couple and asking if I could take her photo. There she was, holding her purse in her lap and looking off to her left, while on her right was one of those bronze life-size statues of a woman holding her purse on her lap and looking of to her left (the same direction). Great shot, but not meant to be. Kooky English!

I also picked up a Dimage 7 digital camera in the photo shop where I get my negatives developed. It didn't have the battery in it, but I thought it was at once strangely light in weight, gimmacky in feeling, and festooned with controls. I worry about the not-so-far-off date when I'll have to buy something along those lines simply because film is dying.

rand()m quote

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.