Now I have a bit more time on my hands, I am exploring my local community for strangers. I’ve tended to go into Nottingham for my strangers, but the local civic park, the “Duck Park” has proved quite successful in recent weeks for strangers.
Meet Kare, pronounced “Cara” , who runs a lovely little cafe overlooking the lake at Arnot Hill Park. The “Lake View Cafe”
I was taking some pictures of the fountain in the lake, which was bathed in some low autumnal / winter sunlight.
As I was taking the photos, I noticed a steady stream of customer to the cafe, dog walkers, OAP’s , council workers. Kare seemed to know all there names and was having some nice chats with them.
I thought she might make a nice stranger, so I waited a few minutes for the sun to drop a bit more to illuminate her kiosk as I knew I might get a striking shot.
Once the sun had dropped, it only took a circuit of the lake for me and Ruby to do so, I approached Kare for a photo.
She agreed straight away and I asked her to lean forward through the serving hatch, as I knew it would give me a “frame within a frame “ photo.
I took several photos of Kare, including a headshot, but I decided to post this photo as the chalk board menu and Kare within the hatch really told her story well.
When I aked Kare her name she emphasised the spelling… “My Mum liked to be a bit different, my spelling wasn’t Cara , it was Kare, my brothers are Philip with one “L” and Garry with two R’s. She was like that”
“Hey” , I replied, “I am Philip with one L, there’s nothing wrong with that” (although the only people who call me Philip are Mum and my wife when she is cross or want to get a point across)
We shook hadns after the shoot and me and Ruby went off to shoot some final autumn colours.
Oh and this was shot with a Pentax M SMC 50mm f1.7 vintage lens. I’ve not used it for a while, but it did a great job of Kare’s photo.
I thought of doing this in mono, but I liked the colours of the sweets on Kare's Counter and of course Kare's pin sharp blue eyes.
For lovers of egg mayo and cress cobs, it was off the menu today !
Editied in darktable and GIMP
Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page
https://www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers
My own strangers can be seen here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/57144254@N08/albums/72157657822400168
@sangwann cheers dione , your support is really appreciated, Kare looks great in the frame
@lesip thank you so much
@quietpurplehaze I do Haze, many thanks :)
@sdutoit thank you sylvia :)
@caterina thank you caterina for the fave and your support