When traveling I am always super hesitant to take photographs of people. Maybe they think I'm stealing their soul, maybe they are undercover police who will destroy my camera, maybe they just got their picture taken by 50 other white people and I add to their growing resentment of these strange outsiders, maybe someday they sue me for posting it to a weird blog. Anyway, I typically do not take any photos of people (unless they're friends or performers).
Now I get a somewhat easy out because I generally don't take many pictures at all and mostly mooch off of other people that do...
But that doesn't mean people don't take pictures of me. In Ghana a whole group of dudes took a picture with me and my friends, presumably to use on a visa application. At pretty much every conference I attend, the organizers take pictures with me, sometimes so that they can bring the photo to a tailor and get by clothes copied. Yesterday two people I have never seen, in matching pink outfits, interrupted my business meeting in the lobby of my hotel to ask if they could take a picture with me. Maybe they mistook me for someone else? Today, there was a canoodling couple on the boardwalk by the lake who stopped their snuggling to ask if the could take a picture with me. "This is my girlfriend!" is the only explanation I got as the dude shoved us together and snapped three pictures.
I can't wait for one of these weird pictures to surface somewhere 20 years from now. For all I know I'm on the Burmese version of Perez Hilton.
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