There was a time long ago, back when I walked to school uphill both ways, when I was very careful about the photos I took. There were only so many available on the film, after all. I didn’t want to waste them! I had to buy the film, take it to the store when it was full of pictures, then pay to wait a week until it was developed.
Now that kids have it easier and presumably walk downhill both ways to school (like seriously, did the schools move?), I can take a thousand pictures of nothing and it doesn’t cost me a cent. AND I have them immediately—no waiting a week.
Why am I going on about this? I’m getting there, young whippersnapper.
Because we were so careful, we’d make sure not to get strangers in the backgrounds of our photos if we could help it. And yeah, I still try to be careful, but I can take ten of the same picture to make sure the majority of the strangers are facing the other way.
There’s always been the danger of getting sued by someone who ended up in your picture, especially if you post it publicly. But we take so many pictures these days without really thinking about it. Videos too. It’s a national pastime to photograph as many things as we can.
So that got me thinking—how many strangers have taken pictures of me? Not because they wanted to, but just because I was there at the time.
It’s kinda creepy to think about it.
Kinda.
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lindaghill.com 
May 30, 2024 at 8:43 am
Hahaha it is kinda creepy when you look at it like that, strangers taking shots of you just because your there in their line of vision!
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February 18, 2024 at 11:59 am
Some times I still try to set up the perfect shot before clicking…forgetting that I don’t only have one chance to capture it. Shoot many, delete liberally, and edit the ones you like the best!
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February 21, 2024 at 6:08 pm
Yes! My philosophy exactly. 😀
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February 17, 2024 at 9:46 pm
Yuppers…digital camera land, point-click-shoot video with your phone and insta upload to public social media accounts, (sometimes, automatically!) stuff is fraught with putting someone, somehwere, in bad spot when they were just in the back ground and not there for anything other, than ….perfectly reasonable intentions of – “hey! my friends” invited me, never been ‘there/visited that/have time and money to go” –
Sigh – there is one clip that over and over, I keep thinking about, this election year, from what I first saw, during day of January 6, 2021, news coverage, shares, and keeps on a being shared, in various forms, by various folks –
An elderly gentleman, best as I can tell, by his gait, beard, hair color behind those who busted out/through, barriers, human lines made for ‘big crowd/some of the natives are restless/upset’ barriers, doors,windows, etc., BUT is also in front of the surge of people, behind him, meaning, he has only two choices – move forward or get trampled by those behind him…
He seems fairly innocuous and rather, lost, overall – Over one arm is the carried the windbreaker/lightweight raincoat he has, in case he needs it. In the other arm, with hand attached to it, a cell phone resides – and he looks at it, with head down, as he shuffles forth as best he can – but also, raises up, once in awhile and appears to be taken pictures/videos even while, if everything is wiped from the context around him of chaos?
He looks like someone taking a tour and standing in awe and trying to drink in the moment he first stepped foot in our nation’s capitol building of representatives –
I STILL wonder about that guy – I wonder if he knew, he was being filmed? IF he has paid multiple prices over and over for just moving with the crowd, or if he was invited along to document the day for his group of buddies that said, “We’ll go first, your job to document this day!”
There are times I return, over and over, to the various clips and angles that moment, with that man, was captured in and shared everywhere and still see clips of digital video that include him, in the mix.
And I still don’t know – who he is or why or how he came to be there or if he did on purpose and no regrets or rues the day he ever was in that particular portion of time/space and surrounded by others who might be the death of him, in their focused actions of ‘moving forward’.
Even if such things have been discovered AND also shared, in the past 3 years, on fronts I don’t follow/know about until someone, publically or privately, shoves onto my radar –
But in digital, public, social media age? Increasingly, I think about him – and what various versions of life since then, might have played out – sigh –
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February 21, 2024 at 6:13 pm
Interesting. After all, there had to be at least one or two in a crowd of that many who wished they could have turned back. Maybe your guy was one of them.
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February 17, 2024 at 8:10 pm
I do try not to have people in my picture, especially those that I’m going to post.
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February 21, 2024 at 6:13 pm
It’s impossible sometimes, I’ve found. Unfortunately.
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February 21, 2024 at 7:42 pm
Very true but we try
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February 17, 2024 at 6:44 pm
I didn’t even take pictures in the days of film, Linda. I still try to avoid including people, but sometimes, you can’t.
Do I remember you being on a traffic camera video in Japan?
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February 17, 2024 at 7:10 pm
Yes! My best friend got a screenshot of me waiting for the light to change at Shibuya crossing. I got up and went down there especially for that at 6am. He tried to get one of me waving as I crossed the intersection, but he’s technologically challenged. 😛
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February 17, 2024 at 4:05 pm
haha Yes, to all you said about taking pictures in the ‘old’ days. Same here. That last bit of wondering how many stranger’s photos are we in … I’ve thought about that, too. It is creepy. But I have stranger’s pictures on mine too. Odd isn’t it. 🙂
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February 17, 2024 at 5:08 pm
It really is odd. The fact that we’re there in the picture forever and yet dismissed as easily as we are in passing. Unless the picture catches us doing something weird. Haha!
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