For the longest time I’ve wanted to be able to take particular pictures of specific people, not just general photographs that happen to have people in them. It’s just something I tend to feel really uncomfortable about, the whole idea of taking pictures of members of the public, and it’s a topic I’ve posted about before, here and here…
Today I was walking past a row of Victorian terraced houses not far from home and saw a workman inside tidying up around the edges of an empty window frame in a front bay window. I had my camera in my hand so was brave enough to take a shot, and then another…
And then he saw me, so I smiled at him and asked him to give me a smile for the camera, which he did… ta-da!

So this is my second deliberate environmental portrait of someone at work – the first was this young lad cooking paella at Borough Market a few weeks ago…
Although I did once accidentally manage to catch someone in their everyday work environment smiling for my camera – he just happened to look up and smile and wave as I clicked to take the shot of the whole scene, so that doesn’t really count as a proactive one-to-one encounter for me, as I didn’t actually have to interact with him to capture the shot. Here’s the aforementioned wave from a friendly shoe repair guy anyway…

OK, so maybe I’ll be nice to myself and allow it to count as three in total, as I did actually take the shot instead of mumbling an apology of sorts and running away in embarrasment… now to work up to finding a suitable subject for environmental portrait number four! 🙂
I know what you mean. It’s even harder to take street portraits in your hometown vs a strange one. When I’ve traveling I have no problem going to a complete stranger, chatting them up and taking close-up portraits. In my home town though? A lot harder. You have some perfectly good shots here, keep it up – it’ll get easier.
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Thank you for the positive reassurance, I’ll keep at it! 🙂
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Nice pictures! I especially like the shoe repair … Time Wounds All Heels is very clever name for the shop 🙂
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I thought so too! 🙂
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I like these! The paella one is my favorite. 🙂
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The paella smelled good, too 🙂
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I know what you mean. I don’t even put family photos on here, and am hesitant to take a strangers photo. Seems like the people in your photos didn’t mind, and were friendly about it. 🙂
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Maybe Londoners are used to tourists taking pics all the time and think nothing of it! 🙂
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LOVE these pictures. Its like a Zoo. “People in their natural surroundings”. Lets see more!
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Thank you! 🙂
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