You Just Never Know

Photo & Text © 2012 Seattle Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

I like to shoot street and in doing so I end up taking a lot of candids. You just never know what might come up. Two groups of people I generally tend not to shoot candids of are homeless people and children. If I see something compelling about a child or a homeless person that I want to shoot I will usually approach and ask permission first. It's not a true street shot at that point, but becomes a type of street portrait because the subject is aware of the camera. So it was in this case. The light was just amazing, the man's bright hat and appearance so striking, I just couldn't pass the shot by, and so I asked if I could take his photo. He said sure, was kind, soft spoken, didn't ask for anything in return. I'd seen him before, and I've seen him since and never photographed him again, but that afternoon in the perfect light, well, that was a memorable shot. I've just learned that the subject of my street portrait made the Seattle news headlines last month as a suspect in the 1976 murder cold case in Maine to which he entered a plea of not guilty. According to Maine authorities, he was questioned twice back in the day but there was not enough evidence to hold him. He was apparently arrested for knifing someone in Seattle last year, which opened up suspicions about the older case. He was arrested in October for the Maine murder based on new DNA evidence gathered from a piece of chewing gum a plain clothes police officer working on the 36 year old case gave to him, posing as doing a gum survey. You just never know when you're shooting what you might learn.