An elderly member of our group on that last recruitment tour in the Middle East is very fond of photography, especially portraits of people. In every country we go to, he would stop random people on the street to take their pictures. Sometimes the people were cool about it, other times they were not.

I am also into photography and I can understand being interested in shooting the different and the new, including people, and I have to acknowledge the fact that he was at least asking for verbal consent before snapping away, but stopping natives on the street to snap a few shots of them is just..well, it got me thinking: What if I go to, say, New York City and start asking random passers by if I can take their picture for no good reason?

Best case scenario I get the finger, worst case scenario I get shot.