Stolen Soul

It was a somewhat rainy night and I was parked underneath one of my favorite overhangs taking a few photos. In particular, I was looking for colorful umbrellas to photograph. A few shots in this direction, a few in that direction.

Then a tall guy with darkish skin, braids and cargo shorts walked towards me from the direction I was shooting. "Did you take my picture?" I said, "You might have been in a picture I took but I wasn't taking a picture of you." "But did you take my picture? I'm just asking."

The guy wasn't on my radar, and I was rather annoyed being questioned like this. I rudely responded, "You really don't look interesting enough for me to want to take a picture of you". He said, "I'm a Native American, and want to make sure you didn't steal my soul".

Well, i can appreciate this but if he wanted to protect his soul, he was standing in a highly touristed area with many camera touting out-of-towners in the vicinity. He must have been walking up to people everywhere asking them if they took his picture. I told him, "I took two pictures in your direction." "Can I see the pictures?" I showed him, he was satisfied that his soul was intact and walked away. A little while later, I saw a subject that I wanted to shoot, but held back because he would have been in the shot. In reviewing the pictures I did take, however, I did notice him in the back of one of the shots. I just deleted the shot and his soul is now freed.

Here's more about the idea held by Native Americans that pictures taken of them steal their soul. I wonder if this notion is that anyone who's photographed loses his soul, or if it applies only to someone who is a Native American.