Sparks

Minding my own business out for an early morning smoke with the trusty camera, clocked these construction guys working on a site spraying these gorgeous sparks all over the place. After a few minutes of the trying to get a half descent shot i was approached by two men both wearing un necessary looking hard hats and holding clipboards - the observer types - the shorter man approached whilst the taller stood within earshot surveying from a distance. 

"you know what you're doing is illegal" 

he states in a calm but somewhat nervous tone. 

"No it's not, you're working in a public area and i have every right to take a picture of these workers" 

"No, actually its our company policy that you can't take pictures of our employees when working because it can get us in trouble"

It was his pause that i jumped on.

"Your company policy isn't the law, and I'm not taking pictures of your workers"

i showed the short man the shots i had taken

"If you can make out the faces of any of your workers in this picture you must have some pretty good eyesight, I'm taking pictures for an online photo journal and i really like this one so theres no chance I'm deleting it for you and your camera shy employees" 

as he turned back to his taller colleague muttering his vague and obscure complaints, i felt the warm embrace of a personal victory and it felt fucking amazing. 

moral of the story is, don't let short men with clipboards and hardhats tell you what you can and can't do if you already know what you're doing. 

Shoutout to John Morrison, Lecturer at Napier University for teaching us photographer's rights. You're the unsung hero of December the 11th 2016.