Ever wonder how other people see us when we are concentrating on taking pictures? For a moment, we have a special relationship with our subjects that, in a way, lasts forever …. as the result is more or less permanent. Even if we are totally erased from the subject’s memory, as is probably the case with famous people who are photographed all the time, or, in fact, if the subject is inanimate or non sentient, that photo is still there. Lasting forever … sort of.

At various times, in particular places, I have had the good luck to have a stranger take a picture of me interacting with my subject. Since, when I travel i always carry a portable hard drive with me, I was able to download the picture from their card, and thus possess it. I share four of them with you.

The first group were taken in Bhutan back in 2003. (It seems like yesterday that we were there, so it’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that this was twenty years ago.) Bhutan is a little kingdom in the Himalayas that had deliberately kept itself isolated from the west, and we were among the first to enter. It was great being in a “virgin” place, as at that time, Bhutan had not yet become contaminated by tourists. They didn’t even have televisions.

Also, back then, digital cameras were relatively new everywhere, so most people had never encountered one. Certainly not in the Himalayas. In fact, when we flew from Bhutan in a small plane, the copilot invited me up front so I could demonstrate my camera to him and the pilot. Naturally then, here in Bhutan just about no one had ever encountered such a device. In the third photo you will see the shocked and delighted faces on the young women as they had their first meeting with my very expensive five megapixel toy. The picture of us was taken by some stranger with his own 3mp digital, and its quality was pretty bad. But the point is, you see what you see.

The next set of photos shows my encounter from a safari van with a hyena. I regarded her as a photo op, she probably thought of me as dinner. Anyway, the pic of me was taken with a Kodak Instamatic. As it happens, the woman who took it was a direct descendant of the famous explorer, Vitas Bering, for whom the Sea and Strait are named. She was gracious enough to send me a print, which I scanned for this post.

The one of me with the little kid was taken in Mali by a fellow bus passenger. He didn’t quite catch the decisive moment as the kid was looking down when he snapped his photo.

The final pair was taken at the remote World Heritage Site, Kaziranga National Park. At that particular moment, we happened to be the first of several little four person safari jeeps. There were six jeeps altogether and, as none of us knew each other. the guides rotated which jeep would be in front of the pack at any given time. We were actually looking for rhinos when our driver halted the group because he thought he spotted (or should I say “striped”) a female tiger. We came to a halt and I was lucky enough to have the big cat stroll right in front of me. The photo is not great, but that large gal certainly was beautiful. A man in the jeep behind us attempted to get a photo of the beast, and this was the result. I sent everyone who was there all the photos I took, as they deserved them just as much as I did. I just happened to be luckier regarding my position than they were.