"Look, I'm not an intellectual - I just take pictures." - 365 Project, Day 20

I remember walking around on a Saturday night in downtown Ottawa, looking for something to shoot.  During that particular time of the year, Ottawa nightlife is not horrible, and the area I was in had street magicians, jugglers and suchlike.  Of all the pictures I took that night, one stands out in my mind.  It's one of a street magician, in the middle of his trick, looking at the participant (who is off-camera).  The look in his face is, in my mind, part intensity, part concentration, but also part desperation.  Now, this last part may only be in my own mind, but I see this.  The people standing around this magician admiring his work were watching me take pictures of the card trick he was doing, but they probably didn't see what I saw.

When I walk around taking pictures, I wonder what people think.  I should qualify this by explaining something.  When I'm taking pictures of random things, I couldn't care less what people thing.  They just see someone taking pictures.  What I mean is where I'm in street mode, looking to catch an everyday picture of people doing mundane things, they sometimes spot me.  I've missed some quite nice pictures, not wanting to alarm someone looking at me.  Sometimes, in not-so-nice neighborhoods, people seem to want to sock me for looking at them, let alone taking a picture of them.  When someone sees me taking a picture of them, I sometimes wonder what goes through their mind.  I suppose it depends on the state of their thoughts and the way they think.

It seems like being daring is an important part of street photography and the (to be quite honest, somewhat relatively minimal) danger is at least one way of getting a great photograph (though, honestly, not a hard prerequisite).

This has nothing to do with the pictures today, but I thought I'd mention it.

Frank

His note: This telephone pole has seen better days...

Mandy

Her note: Backache therefore... Shot glass + Ceiling lamp = This

Shannon

Shannon didn't have anything to say about this, but she just wanted you all to know this was her floating candle.

Pat

I see this every day walking back home but it caught my eye today and thought it would make an interesting picture with the brickwork and the lonely satellite dishes.

Onto tomorrow, and we will see what comes of it!