"You want to take my picture? Why?"

Photo: © 2007 Steve Gomes.

The very few times I've ever asked a stranger if I could take their picture the response has almost always been "Why?" To which I never have a good answer. And which, I think, explains why I don't often ask people if I can take their picture, and why I prefer to do candid/street shots.

Emily Shur wrote something the other day that I think explains why answering that question is so difficult:

I always feel as though there's supposed to be some deeper meaning behind my pictures, a meaning other than "Something inside me connected with what I saw in front of me, so I pulled out my camera and took a picture." That does not seem to fly as an artist statement. Why, I'm not sure.