From Permission to Forgiveness

There are two kinds of street photography: what I call permission photography and forgiveness photography.

In permission photography, which is they type I normally do, you walk up to individuals and groups you meet on the street, establish contact, and gain permission to take their picture. It can take anywhere from 3 seconds to over an hour, depending on the situation and context, but the point is that the subject has given permission to have their picture taken.

There is a level of trust, eye contact, and often some control over the framing and positioning of the shot in permission photography. These are usually plusses. On the downside, the pictures are less spontaneous and can feel posed or static. In physics as in psychology, this is known as the Observer Effect: people often behave differently when they know they are being observed.

And then there is a second type of street photography, what I call forgiveness photography. This simply involves taking pictures before or without the subjects realizing that they are being photographed. Hence, when inevitably some of them do realize you’ve poked a voyeur’s eye into their daily existence, the need to smoothly patch things over with friendliness and reassurance–i.e. the forgiveness.

Forgiveness photography, like photojournalism, often feels more “real” or raw. It’s people in motion versus people stopped.

Given that I’ve been doing about 80/20 permission vs. forgiveness photography so far on this trip, in Calcutta I decided to reverse these. My focus and task, in this city, would be on capturing the immediacy of unposed moments and reality of life unscripted…