Dressing to Kill

In a new city I sit at a sidewalk cafe with camera in view.

People will notice.

Then walk around a bit scoping the locality with camera in view.

Now after a hour people know I'm a photographer. So I raise my camera and 'ask' with my eyes and follow on from there.
 
A friend of mine in the UK who travels a lot, does consulting and conflict resolution work told me some years ago, he was treated better on the airlines if he dressed well. Israel is a hot country; here it is November, and summer lingers on :-( My standard street clothes are jeans and a shirt. A few minutes ago, I returned home from a conference at a swanky hotel, and wore new, dark jeans, rather than the faded ones I usually wear, with the bottom cuff edges a bit raggedy.

Someone once said, "Clothes make the man." I would translate that to... our clothes have something to do with how we feel about ourselves.

Finally, Ruben highlighted several important points, NOT directly connected with clothes. In being but one metre away, the photographer, had, in effect, violated the subjects' space. Further, his abrupt disengagement from his subjects, sounded kind of "hit and run." It takes but a few moments and positive vibrations... to show a genuine interest in people. For me, that is far more important than fancy clothes.
 
mike goldberg said:
.... In being but one metre away, the photographer, had, in effect, violated the subjects' space. Further, his abrupt disengagement from his subjects, sounded kind of "hit and run." It takes but a few moments and positive vibrations... to show a genuine interest in people.......
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I think this is a fair assesment of what I saw, and I repeat that the two fellow subjects weren't violent at all nor stood up from their chairs.

But Mike, what is this new idea for me: "the subjects' space" ? Do you mean a kind of insulting proximity ?

Cheers from a few aerial km away, and some milions web-km,
Ruben
 
ferider said:
Ruben, at the time the photos were taken even students were
dressing like HCB in the photos.

Not clear what you mean by "average working men".

Roland.
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Sorry Roland, somehow your post escaped my attention. I expressed myself according to the somehow poor surroundings where I work. But of course all social sectors go daily to work, and the intensity of each one's efforts at work has nothing to do with social position.

As for the students at HCB time, I am not sure. Then it was a suit and a tye, today it is the jeens, but we both know there are different qualities of suits, tyes, jeens, and the other things we have not mentioned like shirt, shoes, side bags etc.

Cheers,
Ruben
 
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I would agree that clothes certainly set the tone for your appraisal of someone, and that is all most of our subjects have to judge us by, a glance. So yes, I think that dressing, if not well, then appropriately, is necessary.

Edit: Soon I should be considerably more dapper while making photos, my new fedora gets here this week!
 
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Hi...
The subject's space has to do with territory or a concept known in sociology, as personal space. When I'm on a city bus and people are in close to one-another, packed like sardines, I feel damned resentful. If a photograper is one metre away from his subject, he needs some kind of "permission," even if it is informal.

I do find, however, that with a small digicam NOT raised to my eye, I can get away with [sh***y way of saying it], street shots, no questions asked. It is told of Cartier- Bresson, he was having lunch with a friend in a restaurant, got up in mid-sentence, clicked off a shot and sat down again.
 
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