Painter @ Central Station

Last Friday I had my driver's lesson in Nijmegen (a neighbouring town where I lived until last July) and I decided to catch the early train so I didn't have to run from the platform to the car. I got out around 11am and was rather surprised when I found that we had stopped at the far end of the platform quite far from the actual station. I got out, stepped into the warm fall sun and started off towards the station to shoot some photos from anything I could see. When I had taken about 2 steps I saw a man sitting in the shade of the train.

Read on after the jump >>>

I decided to wait for a few minutes, scout the surroundings, think of different points of view, and wait until the train had departed so I would have him sitting in the sun. The second the train started to pull away from the station one of the conductors walked up to him and explained him that if he didn't have a permit to sit and paint here, he would have to leave. That was just my luck :S Luckily he was friendly and she decided to get her supervisor on the radio who judged it okay for him to paint. This was my cue!



 I walked up to him and asked him if it was alright if I took some photos of him. He said: Sure :D. The thing is, I didn't need his permission to take a picture (or several pictures) of him when he is in a public place, but it is so much wiser to do so. People often say yes when you ask this question and it opens up a world of possibilities. I only had a 50mm (short) lens on me and I would never have gotten these photos if I hadn't asked him. His allowing me to take photos of him gave me the opportunity to get in really close.

 Some of these photos were taken from about 50 cm of the painter, way inside the normal comfort zone if you are strangers, and I think that makes all the difference. Another thing that was really nice is that I had a conversation with this man. I started to ask a few questions and he was as nice as to repay the favour. This opened up the possibilities even further and gave me a backstory to this man just sitting and painting at central station. That story I am not going to share today, and all I will say is that I liked it :)