@bestlight · 2mo ago
The food spots on here are all hawker centres and the photos that make me want to go are the ones with people in them — uncles at tables, stall aunties working. But I feel deeply uncomfortable pointing a camera at strangers eating lunch and I do not know if that instinct is correct or just nerves.
Your instinct is correct and worth keeping. It is legal in a public place, which is not the same as it being all right. What works for me: shoot the food, the stall, the queue, the hands. Nobody minds. If you want a person's face, buy something from them first and then ask. Almost everyone says yes once you are a customer rather than a tourist with a lens.
Would add one thing — do not photograph people eating. It is the single most undignified thing anyone does in public and no photograph is worth it. Before the food arrives, after it is cleared, the stall itself. Never mid-mouthful.
Agree with both. Also learn to say it in the dialect if you can manage it. At Maxwell or Chinatown Complex a bit of Hokkien or Teochew turns the whole interaction around.
This is more useful than anything I have read about street photography generally. Bought lunch first, asked after, and the auntie repositioned her whole stall for me. Completely different from what I was dreading.