Lot of good that does these days. You have to be ghillie-suit stealth to get candids. You try to direct people “don’t mind me” or “just carry on, I’m adjusting settings” but they won’t forget or move on. Suddenly, you’re their photographer for their instagram and they start directing you. They fixate and preen and pose and it kills the mood to even shoot so I just move on.
The best images I take are the ones I end up showing to the subject and they say “oh I didn’t even notice”.
Of course I knew who won as soon as you posted the image. I would have voted for that one too.
I agree that as soon as you see someone has noticed you, it tends to ruin the moment. So I generally stop taking photos of them and keep looking.
Depending on the situation, long glass can help because you can shoot from further away. But then all your photos tend to look the same. So you end up getting closer with shorter glass, and just being patient, having a conversation, blending in, becoming part of the furniture.
though they're probably moving a lot more slowly these days