Yesterday I decided to force myself out of the house and walk around with the K10D with just the strap and the F 50 2.0. (more on that bit of adventure later).
While in the Manhattan side lower deck, I noticed a Hasidic* family - what I assumed to be a mother and her two boys, father standing near. Without them noticing, I snapped a few shots of them looking out into the bay and taking pictures.
Now, I'm usually pretty weird about taking candids of people in public. I don't want to be in any pictures without being asked first - and just taking picture of people - especially those with kids, does make me feel slightly creepy.
and then there' all my personal image rights issues.
At first I was just going to leave it alone. Thinking that orthodox Jewish people seem fairly stand-offish anyway, so why bother.
Then I thought about Leiby Kletzky.
And I thought about this family with two small boys.
I may have even thought about the quote I read of someone not being able to believe the killer was Jewish.
(what, Jewish are that much better then everyone else?)
Then I decided, as the boat was pulling into the dock, that I was going to show it to the father ( I assumed ) and maybe offer a sense that maybe there were some non-crazy people in the world.
So, I did - and there was a slight awkard moment, and another when I offered to e-mail it to him.
(which I realize now was probably just him trying to understand why this strange man was taking pics trying to get a card - everybody in the city is wary of a sales pitch).
Then I showed it to the young woman, and the other adult male with them - smiles both times.
(which I was surprised about since I wasn't sure if orthodox women were ALLOWED to speak to non-Jewish men)...
Today I loaded them up onto photobucket and sent him a message with the link.
I did not expect to get an almost immediate response:
"wow thanks a million"
My pleasure, sir. Be safe.
