This harried young man echoed my own sense of urgency as I tried to find a suitable photo for this week's Photo Hunt challenge: a skull cap (with bonus points for it being worn, being a yarmulka, and for varied coloration).This picture was taken this morning in Lakewood, NJ, which is something of an Orthodox Jewish enclave.
Update – 11/28/06
(I know that snapshot gratitude has felt my pain on at least one occasion!)
As the weeks go by, it seems my goal for each challenge falls into one of the following categories
a. try to capture the subject in a smartly-composed, well-executed (dare I say artistic) manner, or
b. to hell with the art, rack up the bonus points.
I think I’ve approached this Platonic ideal a couple of times, most notably here and here. But sometimes, it’s just not in the cards and you make do with what you have.
Maybe it was the difficulty I had getting it (see my Comments for that story). Maybe it’s because I typically don’t photograph people, unless they’re doing something really interesting (like this).
I guess you guys see something in this shot that I don’t. Maybe this is art after all… ? (The jury will take a while with that one... Meanwhile, I'll still be Finding My Way...)
(And thanks for indulging me in this rant – I didn’t mean to get all “bloggy” like this.)
3 comments:
This is a great shot... how did you get it? Did you just lurk by a temple and wait for someone running late?
Well, sort of...
As I stated on the post, the town of Lakewood has a very prominent Orthodox Jewish community (who, btw, are gradually rebuilding the town - we deal with the developers often here at my work). So I thought I’d have a good chance of finding a man in a yarmulke there.
It was not quite so easy - most of the male pedestrians I saw were wearing a wide-brimmed hat over their yarmulke (it was a chilly morning). Plus - let me tell you - surreptitiously photographing someone is harder than you'd think! I spotted a few suitable subjects as I drove through town, but trying to get behind them (to see the yarmulke, after all), park and get the shot proved next to impossible. And trying to "not look suspicious" probably only made me look more suspicious! ;)
So I was forced to park and set out on foot, being even more exposed and self-conscious of what I was trying to do, and hoping that subjects would come my way.
It was completely by chance that this young man ran by me - and that I was able to get a clear shot of him after he passed.
This was one of only two usable yarmulke photos I got from 2 different stops in Lakewood!
Congrats on the first place! And thanks for the great laugh on the state of scavenger topics lately. Yes, indeed I have felt your pain. You don't know how hard I searched last Monday for anything that happened to be leatherbound. I guess I shoulda started earlier, but last minute stuff is my modus operandi. Jorj is certainly making that more difficult, LOL!
Looking forward to your cotter pin... Guess I better go find mine as well.
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