The other night I stopped by Starbucks in Bashamichi on the way to my office from a studio in Chinatown. As I turned off the engine of my car, I noticed the sound of a piano. In front of the coffee shop a man was playing a piano left there for the use of the general public. (Locals will have noticed a few of these pianos placed in other places around the city.)
There were not many people at the store since it was near closing time and people’s movement has been curtailed by government regulations due to the pandemic. Those that were there appeared to be casually listening to the sounds of the music floating in from the street. I was struck by a short-haired woman who had stopped typing on her laptop, slid off her headphones, and closed her eyes to take in the tune.
There is a genre in photography called “street snap”. In a recent ad by a filmmaker, the appropriateness of capturing an unknowing subject in a street snap was questioned. As of yet, the right and wrong remains a gray area.
There is no harm in simply listening to the melody of the piano being played. But photographing the player is an entirely different thing. The performer now becomes the subject of a photograph when his or her intention may have been only to share music.
The relationship with a photo’s subject is always both an enjoyable yet challenging part of photography.