An awkward moment

I'd forgotten how much I liked this one. I found again it the other day while putting together some promotional stuff, getting ready for Dorset Art Weeks in May. It was taken during the summer on Portland, as I recall, on the edge of a park in Portland. I love the lush beauty of the flower border and the sickly squalor of the heart image.

I can remember, for virtually every image, where it was taken and the situation it was taken in, and I sometimes wonder if i should write it down for each too. That's partly why I keep this blog, but even if I added one image a day it would take me far too long to do. There's a funny story associated with this one, and it says a lot about the current climate for photographers who work outdoors: I was with my kids at the park, and they'd run off with Vick to play on the swings. I spotted this heart on a post of a basketball net. Now, I'm very careful not to photograph in parks and playgrounds if there are kids around, even if my kids are with me, as I know it makes some parents uncomfortable, including me if the photographer is an older man with thick specs on - you can't trust them.

Anyway, I was on my own, no-one around, so I took the heart photo, but as I did, three or four girls sped up to me on their bikes and engaged me in conversation about what I was photographing. Had they been adults I would have explained my project, but these girls were aged about 10 or 11, and although they were obviously happy to talk to me, I felt like I'd morphed into that classic old man with the cobover and thick specs, and I knew that whatever I said, to a passerby reading my lips it would look exactly like "do you want to see my puppies?".... I made my excuses and fled in the direction of my family.

It was a bizarre experience, and my wife thought it was hilarious, the way I'd reacted. I know people who photograph on the street in the style of the classic street photographer, but I know that I can't do it. I know too, that I've missed hearts I would have loved to have got because they were in playgrounds. One in Venice was particularly tempting, but I just couldn't get my camera out, even though I could see another dad snapping away at his kids, and my kids would have been in some of his shots... the dirty bastard...