Its pretty amazing the number of excuses a person can come up with for not taking a photo. Little kids are boring, I hate it when people look right into the camera, and I feel badly invading this person’s privacy. The last of those is the worse because I don’t honestly care about their privacy, I just feel awkward taking the photo.
Brooks set up this ideal photo in my mind and it has kept me from shooting some flics that by other standards would actually be pretty dope. It roughly works like this: The subject is up to some task, you can see their eyes, they are not looking at you, and it elicits some emotional response. There is also of course great light and nothing coming out of their head and No little kids. NO EYE CONTACT. Maybe the rule of thirds in play.
So I took this shot of these little kids. They looked right at the camera. I said huh, that’s kind of cool.