Thai Smiles, Part 30: OK Fine... DON'T Pose!

Schoolgirls talking one morning in Pattaya

Sometimes while I'm out on foot Fate offers me opportunities to take pictures that are what I'd call "slice of life" photos; people going about their everyday lives, unaware that I'm there at all (as it should be, I think). There's a spontaneity to them that a pose rarely captures.

I kind of like these, myself, but they're difficult to catch with a snapshot camera that doesn't focus/take nearly as fast as I'd like. Exposures are left lacking, composition suffers and there's always the issue of the subject or myself moving and leaving the shot blurred. Ah, well... mai pen rai - so it goes.

However, these shots can be some of the most rewarding to someone like me, a part-time voyeur. Perhaps I should be less cavalier about taking people's pictures, but for the most part I still go by the journalist's credo from my college days that says "if they're in a public place, they're fair game." It's not that I don't respect people's right to privacy; if someone declines to have their picture taken I rarely (and I really mean rarely) wait until they're not looking and then take it anyway, but being human I do occasionally - although naturally those never hit the internet.

So, here today - starting with the schoolgirls up top - are a few "candid" shots; pictures that the subjects weren't aware were being taken.

Sabai Hotel employees in Lopburi share something on a cell phone one morning

Three schoolboys laughing at some schoolboy joke before school

A knot of farang on the street in Jomtien