A couple of random events happened to create this picture.
My friend Dan was criticising a TV program, and commented that he would rather watch mega-structures.
I had the house to myself, I was channel surfing, I saw mega-structures on the listing and started watching it. This week it was about the Petronus Towers in Kuala Lumpur.
I became fascinated with the Towers and Kuala Lumpur, and added them to my bluelist.
A year later I was standing in Kuala Lumpur. I wandered around for ages to find the right spot to take the picture.
I needed someone to take it for me. I waited for 30 minutes, until some young girls came by. They didn’t speak a word of English, and it took 7 goes (even with a simple digital camera) to setup the shot.
This is a photo taken in Tiananmen Square.
The chap in this picture, had travelled by bus for 4 days, to visit the final resting place of Mao Zedong, or Chairman Mao as he is known better, in the west.
He asked to be photographed with me, because quite simply, he had never met anyone, before that moment, who wasn’t Chinese !.
As I joked at the time, if I’d known the picture would have such significance to him, I would have lost some weight in advance of it 🙂
He and his wife had an old style film Camera, which his wife used to take their picture. The photo above, is actually her 2nd attempt with my camera. This is the first. She mistook the lens as a viewfinder, and photographed her own face !.
In the 8 things I hate section of this website, I am critical of Liam Gallagher. As I put it, we are all ambassador’s for something, and as a fellow and proud Mancunian, he offends me. Whenever I travel, I try to remember this, (I mean, that Im an ambassador for my country. I don’t go around apologizing to strangers for Liam Gallagher’s existence!).
It goes the other way too. If someone if visiting YOUR country, then they are a guest, and you should act as an Ambassador for your country, at home as well.
What has this got to do with anything. Well the pictures above, would have been impossible to take, without the friendly assistance of passers by.
In the last couple of days, here in Chester, on several occasions, I have seen a wife or husband posing for a photo while the other takes it.
I pause to watch what happens, and see dozens of local people just walk past them. I walk over, and ask they if they would like a picture together. I have done this all over the world, they never decline. Its what they wanted all along, they just didn’t like to ask.
The next time you see a group of tourists/foreigners, whatever you want to call them, capitulating around something with a camera, why not offer to take the picture. Even if they don’t need your help, they will be delighted that you offered your time to help them.