My 2 Second Shelf Life

Familiar Strangers and Hidden Cameras

The photo to your left is by Walker Evans.

While I could probably find some site that has compiled his photos, it's just much easier to google his photos...you can see more of them that way.

Walker Evans did a whole series on hidden camera shots in the subway, which I couldn't find all in one place...

...but, the series of photos spurred a study by Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram describing the ‘familiar stranger’.

The person we see on a regular basis but with whom we have no interaction – like fellow regular commuters on a subway platform, or at the bus stop...or the person you always see at the grocery store.
Milgram, perhaps better known for his controversial authority experiments, wrote that familiar strangers form a necessary bridge in our individual social world between our friends and complete strangers.

As a sidebar, this originally started as a bit of a rant about The Ontario Privacy Commission giving a "green light" to subway cameras.
I'm of the mind that when you're out in public, you cannot expect "privacy".
I think it's long overdue.

People behave as though there will be RCMP Officers watching how much cream you put in your coffee at the local coffee shop, and sending you letters about your fat intake, and then reporting it to your insurance company...giving them reason to increase your premiums.

In reality, no one gives a shit about what you're doing...but if you get shot while you're getting that coffee, at least police can roll back the film and get a picture of who did it.

Especially when witnesses go blind, like they have a tendency to do in this city.