When I was walking through Hanoi I discovered that having my wife with me tended to make me less obtrusive as a photographer. There are however times when you can sense that someone is not a willing subject. This poses the moral question, to photograph or not to photograph? If I get a direct "no", I walk away. Sometimes though I resort to an old trick I read about 30+ years ago.

My father was a good photographer and subscribed as part of his hobby to Leica Fotografie. I still have 2 bound volumes of this publication dating back to the early 60s. I just looked at them - 61/62 and 63/64. I remember reading an article by (at least I think it was by him) a man called Chris W Broere, probably in his series "Chit-Chat on Leica technique". He advocated carrying the Leica in one hand at waist level and photographing unobtrusively from the hip. Now my father's Leica, which I still posess, was an M3 and had only a single 50mm lens. Try getting decent photos with this technique using film and a standard 50mm lens - its tough. The wastage is very high. With digital and a short zoom or wide angle lens you can shoot over and over again. The chances of getting a 'keeper' are high.

And this is how I took this photo. This is the full frame, uncropped. For anybody remotely interested these were the settings: 1/200 sec, f 5.6, 24mm, ISO 200.

I may post a few more after I have finished working through them.