A few days ago I was doing a little shopping, when I see a sign in a coffee shop window that read "I love meeting people downtown".

 

What!?!

 

I then imagined taking a picture of someone through a window, with reflections on it, and that sign would be perfect. So I turned back to see what the rest of the scene looked like. All I could see was the back of a person near the window, and several feet away at that. Figuring I could not make this work, I walked on by. But how could I pass on this unique visual opportunity? Without thinking about it, I turned around and marched into the shop.

 

My own bold decision caught me off guard, and I froze in place just inside the door. My mind began to race with the usual negative thoughts, when I suddenly found myself standing right next to the couple sitting at the table nearest the window. I don't even remember walking towards them.

 

They were busy in conversation and sensing someone in their space, they both turned their attention inquisitively towards me. Awkwardly, I flashed a surely creepy smile, and began bumbling that I'm doing this project on meeting strangers, and I saw a cool sign outside and I just had to come in!

 

I'm pretty sure they assumed I was a confused vagrant or something, because when I was done speaking, they were now staring at me in confusion. In my eloquent speech I failed to mention the part where I would like to take a picture of one of them. When I finally added that key part, I could see their confusion melt away. The young man indulged me and said he would be fine with my request. His name was Will.

 

I told Will that I would go outside, and just wanted him to look at me through the window. When I went back out into the cold my lens instantly fogged over. I had to quickly wipe it, but it kept fogging over again. In the meantime, as I was taking foggy pictures of Will, he was staring off over to my left at something other than me. I tried to get him to look right at me but it wasn't working, and I finally had a clear lens so I had to just shoot. I had an 85mm lens on, so I had to back away from the building quite a bit to get the sign in the image. I only managed to grab two useable images, when my nerves told me that was it! They'd had enough. I headed back in, quickly thanked him and told him where he could find his image along with the rest of the project .

 

I decided to do this one in black and white, I felt his red flannel shirt kept pulling my eye away from his face. The more I look at this, I feel that his indirect gaze actually works pretty well here.

 

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I was about to drive home from Kingston after doing a Costco run, when I decided I would do a quick drive through the downtown to see if I spotted anyone for my project. I brought the camera "just in case" so why not?

 

After hitting the university area, then down Princess street, and finally past Confederation Park, I decided to pull the plug and head home. On the way out of the downtown I passed the market square and there was a couple of booths setup, and I spotted this lady in a loud green halloween outfit.

 

I didn't have time to look too close though, and turned up Brock street. Right there in front of me was a coveted street parking spot. It seemed I was destined to park the car and get that picture.

 

Iris, was tending a maple syrup products stand, (Shady Mile Farm) and offered me a sample as I approached.

 

Speaking of maple syrup, I am convinced that our new plastic money, has maple syrup scent infused into it as a sort of anti-counterfeit measure. my wife says I'm crazy but stack a bunch of fives in a ziplock bag for a few hours, then take a whiff as you open it and you'll see what I mean.

 

Back to Iris. She had a well rehearsed pitch line about their family farm in Harrington, now being run by her son Scott. He's fifth generation she said proudly. She told me they had been selling in the market for about 2 years now. I told her that I saw her as I was driving by, and by the way she was dressed, I had to stop and try to get her photo. When I explained the project she mentioned that a Global News TV reporter had approached her a while earlier, so she figured she must have a knack for attracting cameras.

 

Iris didn't have too much to say, but I'm sure she was more concerned about not missing a sale instead of chatting with the odd guy with the camera. I did get a small bottle of dark syrup, you know to soak my money in.

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This is my 14th submission to the Human Family Group! To view more street portraits and stories visit The Human Family group

 

This picture is the 14th in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page

 

You can also follow along on my Instagram Project Page

 

or on my Facebook Page.

  

This is the lucky camera of mine that was chosen for disassembly tonight! The damn thing had about a million screws holding it together! I Plan on putting the lens onto a DSLR body cap, as well as using the viewfinders and the shutter assembly in future Frankenstein cameras that I hope to make!

 

It's not a REAL Canon- it's a cheesy rip-off, Counterfeit "Canon" Q5200 Motor Drive focus free optical lens with Red Eye Reduction! Ihad seen one of these at a thrift store in the glass case... I knew what it was and asked to see it and see what they had it priced at... As I was opening it, and seeing if it mechanically worked, the clerk was like "Nice camera, huh?" and I said, "Ha, no - this is NOT a $50 camera - it's a plastic TOY/fake camera." And I had him put it back in the display case. A few months later I ran across this one for $2 though it didn't have the big flash assembly attachment. I didn't care - I just wanted this piece of crap to laugh at.

No serial number can be found. This card does not work and screwed up my computer and camera! The pictures were not saved, the camera gave error messages, froze my camera (no more buttons can be pushed!), wasted time to troubleshoot (gotta get home and find my camera manual! what the heck is going on?), tried to format on the computer, the computer froze and couldn't read anything, ctrl alt del to reboot my computer, and if you haven't pushed the card into the drives too hard, hopefully the pins weren't damaged...by that time, you've gotta know that it definitely was just a plastic shell or a piece of junk or whatever you want to call it! A quick call to SanDisk technical support can confirm the authenticity of the card. I hope you'll get your money refunded! Best of luck and let me know your experience.