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Dave,
when travelling I sometimes get in such situations - and am still
puzzled. Often it is impossible to ask for permission - for example when you
"shoot" from a bus or boat, or simply due to language problems.
In many cases, I did not take the photo, in others, there was a sort of
permission through gestures or just the _expression_ of the face.
I'm pretty sure that even here in Europe many people would be quite worried
when confronted with a "model release form" - how to explain this
to someone in a remote Indian village?
Also, I don't believe in paying for portraits - either everything is staged
for tourists and in no way genuine, or there's a good chance to interfere with
the local culture: if many tourists pay only a few cents for the portrait of a
child in a developing country, he/she will probably "earn" more than the father
on the fields...
I do take photos of the people I personally get to know - but would
be very reluctant to ever publish them.
The outcome is that I have hardly any portraits on my website.
I very much like the portrait of the man on the bus - he doesn't seem to
object to getting photographed either... Am I too cautious?
How do others here deal with such situations?
Laurenz
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