365:233 THEODOR STANA

Here's my first submission to ‘Community 365’. Coming out of my workplace, I saw this older man with an older Mercedes changing his tires in this smalls square next to my office building. It felt like a very unique moment, with the ‘old-school’ fascinating nature of the car and this odd location for him to change the tires. Hence, I started to take photographs of his car from the angle seen here, then went in front of the car, to also take a photograph that included my office building.

This latter photograph was stopped short by me noticing the man coming toward me in an "I don't like you taking a photo of my car" way. So I stopped, took away the camera from my eye, took my headphones away from my ears (I was incidentally listening to a Photography Daily episode) and started smiling politely and talking to him. To my surprise though, he started pushing (gently, but not friendly) at my camera, asking me why I'm taking a photograph of his car. While my full intention was to engage generously and gently, his constant jabbing at my camera just had the opposite effect and agitated me. I asked him to stop and just reminded him I wasn’t pushing on his car and left, hackles up at how people can be so feisty toward photographers.

It played on my mind for fifteen minutes or so and completely demotivated me photographically. Why are people so mean-spirited? Why be offended by people just wanting to document interesting moments happening in front of them?

And then it dawned on me that I could have approached this in an entirely different way? Had I simply approached the man explaining my benign intentions, even fascination for the moment I saw in front of me and of course his car, it might or probably would have turned out completely differently. Maybe he'd even let me make a portrait of him and his (I'm sure) pride!

This photograph stands as a memory for me of this in the future. I only hope I will be able to remember this line of thinking next time I am offered the opportunity.

See more of Thedi’s work on his Instagram.