Sunday, December 18, 2011

Oh, Snap!

Being a visual person, I often see scenes that I'd like to capture with my camera. But, for several reasons, I generally don't snap.

First, I don't always have my camera with me. Since I began teaching in off-site locations, I've seriously cut down on what I lug around from place to place. (Cell phone? Hah! It's ancient and its photo-taking capacity is laughable!)

Second, I'm not often comfortable taking pictures of people. It's an exaggerated invasion-of-privacy thing, I think. I wonder how professional photographers manage it.

Given the success of recent unplugged exercises that involved handing around and discussing pictures, though, I've been motivated to tuck the camera in my bag again. While riding the subway on Friday, I took this picture:


It has great potential for activities.  I imagine it starting off a discussion about the cold and flu season and ideas for preventing and dealing with illness.  Waiting to be uncovered: imperatives, 1st conditional, dependent clauses and punctuation (or lack thereof).  This last item can lead in to something I want to talk about anyway: proofreading.

OK, but here's my problem.  I even felt a little uncomfortable taking this picture!  I was sitting in a crowded subway and I'm sure I looked a little furtive as I took aim and pressed the button.  I can almost hear the thoughts of the people around me: "Why, on earth, does she want a picture of that sign?"  I guess I've just got to toughen up.  There's so much more "stimulus" I want to snap and I hope it leads to student photo-taking too.

Have you ever felt self-conscious about taking "odd" pictures for your classes?  What do you do about it?

1 comment:

  1. It just occurred to me that it was probably this story that has heightened my sensitivity:

    http://www.npr.org/2011/09/07/140234451/under-suspicion-at-the-mall-of-america

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