“You’re Too Observant, You Notice Too Much” | A Street Photographers Lament

People give me grief for noticing things. “You’re too observant. You notice too much.”

I’ll take it. It makes me two things. It makes me a husband. And I like to think it makes me a photographer.

Because noticing is the whole job. I noticed the woman with her coffee and the man at the counter and locked onto his expression in the background. I noticed a couple mid conversation, her hand reaching for his face. I noticed the mannequins and the tableau and the guy in the back and waited for the subject to amble in and complete it. I noticed a mother coming up the street giving her kids the what-for over her shoulder, and I have the frame to prove it.

Too observant? There is no such thing in this hobby. There is only the shot you saw and the one you walked past.