I have always been hesitant about going up to someone and asking to take their photo. Years ago a mentor told me the worst that could happen was that they say, “No.” I can count the times I’ve been denied on one hand.
The first assignment for my photojournalism class was to photograph features in the area. I photographed three people and then I started walking. Pigeons flew over my head like there was a fire in the other direction — or more likely, popcorn in their sight.
When I looked over, I saw Cynthia Sanford befriending the pigeons of Civic Space Park. She tossed the popcorn and they went crazy. She held out her hand and they jumped in it. She was surrounded in pigeons. I would like to say I walked quickly over there — it was probably more of a jog. I asked if I could take her photo while she fed them. She said, “Yes.”
When I took this photo, my shutter speed was 1/1000th of a second with a corresponding ISO of 100. I took out that much light so I could open the aperture to f/2.5 and add more depth to the swaths of pigeons.
Contact the columnist at Courtney.Pedroza@asu.edu.
