My third stranger from our holiday to Cala Mesquida, Mallorca is Niall.
On the Thursday of our vacation, the hotel held a gala dinner. "A chance to meet your other guests" said the information sheet.
It was indeed a great event. The hotel restaurant was moved poolside, with beautifully laid out tables , cava and canapés on arrival, a guest pianist, a magician doing close up magic on our tables, beautiful food and wine a live band, a wonderful evening for sure.
The hotel had little country flags on the tables with the words "Je parle" ,"I speak", "Yo hablo", "ich spreche" etc.
So Jane and I took our place on an "I speak" table. We were a little concerned as to what guesrs we would meet as there were very few Brits in the hotel. In fact I had only heard two "I speaks" during the week !
Anyway our table consisted of 3 Norwegian couples, Jane and myself and Niall and his wife Rachel from Dublin.
Niall is an engineer / salesman in the area of Augmented Reality. "Errr what is that I hear you ask" ...Niall likened it to virtual reality in the real world ..."think of Pokeman Go" said Niall.
Niall was enjoying his time in the hotel and had been running along the coastal paths in the morning and making use of the hotels sports facilities. Although Niall had underestimated how tough a climb some of the coastal paths were.
Niall's wife Rachel was five months pregnant and was expecting twins in September, so this was Niall's and Rachel's last holiday together as a couple. Niall could speak Spanish quite confidently and had been practicing his skills with the hotel staff.
As we chatted at the table , I told Niall I was going to take some pictures of the event before the light faded. Nial was impressed with my "top end bit of kit" as everybody seemed to take pictures on mobile devices.
It was at that point that I introduced my 100 strangers project into the conversation.
"So you want me to be one of your strangers ?"
"Yes" !!!
I told Niall to do a google search for me and he soon found my 100 strangers project.
So I walked Niall away from the hustle and bustle of the dining table and did a few pictures by the side of the pool in the fading light.
I did quite a few images and moved Niall around the pool for different backgrounds
When we returned to the table, I showed the images to Rachel,
"Oh you have managed to get Niall smiling, He never smiles for me. Oh and I do like the blurred background too. Will you email us some of the pics?"
"Phil worked me hard Rachel, he played me" said Niall.
I emailed the photos to Nial a couple of days ago and thanked him for his time.
I do like my mono shots, but Jane said she liked the colour images as they showed off Niall;s eyes better, so I have posted a colour shot.
This picture is number 86 in my 100 strangers project. 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
@kwind thsnkd kwind
@dulciknit many thanks alison
@sangwann cheers dione, I do take my time with the narratives, so thank you for your really kind words :)
@blueace thanks annie
@tracie8266 thanks tracie, all down to the f stops :)
@allie912 allison thanks for your lovely words :)
@busylady glad you like it judith