Statistics
Michael Wriston on approaching people to photograph them in the street:
I saw a trend—of the 20 people I asked to photograph, twelve were men and eight were women. Of the twelve men I asked, all of them said they had no problem with me taking their picture. All eight women refused. The common rejection was that they thought I was weird (no offense!), with five women citing this as the reason they did not want me taking their photograph.
When I stop people in the street and ask them if I can photograph them my experiences have been similar (although nobody has told me outright that I’m weird so far). I do find that women are more likely to let me photograph them when I have one of my young sons with me. Perhaps it makes the situation less threatening. I’m always careful not to push it. If somebody says no I just thank them anyway and walk away.
