Paul Franklin Stregevsky wrote:
[big snip]
When I asked Ilya why the guy had taken so few shots, he explained how "it's been proven" that each time you take someone's picture, you take away part of their life energy. Whoever owns the print can hurt the person in the picture by--I dunno--tearing up the photograph. Ilya didn't want a stranger taking too many pics, not knowing what the photographer might do with them.
That's an odd one. I spent two years in Russia and married a Russian woman. I found that many Russians have a variety of superstitious beliefs, but this is one I never heard mentioned. While I was there I attended a lot of parties and people took pictures like crazy, and nobody ever objected or raised this concern. My wife still takes lots of pictures -- at parties, at the office, etc. We have drawers bulgingly full of 4x6 prints.
Perhaps it is a regional thing. I was in Moscow and that is where my wife is from. Maybe this belief is from another part of the country -- it is a very big place. :)
Bob Harris
New York City
