Zona

I was in a discussion with Flickr people on when photographs of ordinary people in open spaces are appropriate. Here's what I won't shoot. (generally)

People passed out or sleeping on side walks.
People urinating.
People using drugs.
People pointing weapons at me or anybody else. (not with a camera anyway)
Children crying, bleeding, or dying.
People killing themselves.

There ARE exceptions to all of those. One would be if I were doing a photojournalistic piece on those subjects. Another would be when I took pictures of my infant nephew as he lay dying of a heart defect at my sister's request because they did not have any pictures of him. Those are some of the most touching and difficult shots I will ever take. I still have the negs and some prints somewhere but I don't know where. He passed away 20 minutes after I was done.

Everything else is fair game.

These street people are doing what the normally do. They are in no real distress. They are in a public place so I do not have to ask their permission to point my lens their way and click away. While I was shooting these people somebody in the crowd started yelling "no pictures!". At that point I was pretty much done with this group. I walked away to avoid trouble. Looking back at these photos now I think I shot a drug deal as it went down. No way to prove that though and in Vancouver, on Hastings, nobody would care. Not even the police.