killer knees
fotologs/photologs offer an astounding wealth of beautiful images, some of the most creative artistry on the web and provide an ongoing archive of time and culture. especially the slice of life and street pics, often shot without the permission of the person being photographed. in our love and consumption of candid photos (and in taking some ourselves) we've often wondered how people might feel if they came across a stolen shot of themselves posted on a website.

a couple months ago we stumbled on a photo of the back of a close friend's legs on Kdunk's Fotolog. for a while we hesitated to show the photo to our friend because some of the viewer comments were negative (although overall they were positive.) and also because the person photographed is not an active internet consumer, so the context might become muddled. yesterday we showed a print-out of the photo and comments to our friend (click here to see the pic and 40+ comments).

as she read them over, what became apparent was her humor towards the whole thing, as she laughed at the comments (good and bad.) followed by a small smile of happiness that although there were a couple negative comments the majority overall were resoundingly positive.

in the world of tattoos people rarely discuss their feelings on what other people think (a paradoxical part of getting tattoos is it reinforces your "armor" and you care LESS about other's thoughts and opinions about your body.) but although the "fuck em" stance lays strong and real inside, occasional thoughts of "what do people think" come around for various reasons. as our friend finished reading the comments out loud and making her own funny remarks back, we asked "what do you think?" to which she replied "it's very funny", and then after a pause "people have too much time on their hands". and she asked that we post this explanation "tell them I fell a sleep at a tattoo convention and when I woke up this is what happened"

so although the story is unique, we think it offers a small bit of hope that as the foto/photo blog community grows and people start to see pictures of themselves snapped on the street - that they have the same reflective humor and relaxed "such is life" attitude our friend showed :-)

bonus links: check - out - some - of - our - favorite - foto/photo - logs

update: Kdunk responds on her blog!

(this is the kick-off of our "tattoos are personal" series. tattoos are one of the oldest forms of art, and body adornment. this series will explore some of the stories, symbolism, and deep personal meaning behind them.)