lady crying in cafe

It's always a fine line in photography with the perception of yourself and that of others. So when confronted with the decisive moment where an old lady started to cry on the table opposite you are faced with the options of compulsion, do you take the image without asking or ask and possibly ruin this decisive moment?

I chose the option to talk, where upon I took two frames one where she blinked slightly but looked upset and defined the moment i had witnessed, and this one where she started to talk to me so i framed the image further left including myself in the frame.

It transpired that she was upset with the anniversary of when her husbands death, we talked some, and i paid for her coffee when leaving. Would i have gleaned this information taking the image without asking, and is the information important when displaying the image?

The answer is subjective, and only to realize that the job of a photographer is to make pictures that people want to see but would be uncomfortable taking themselves let alone witness a photographer making.