It started out as a perfect morning, so early that there's almost nobody but the local people and us. We got up at the crack of dawn to "beat the tourists" - yeah, the tourists have been on our "to-watch-out list" since the beginning of our travel + photography. We want to see life in a locale in its "original juice" and tourists are, to say the least, the excessive seasoning (more about that in the future when I can't help keeping my mouth zipped, again). And I love documenting the lives of local people in photography, uninterrupted, in-contaminated...

As we were strolling along the water line, observing the little town waking up to sun rays peaking from behind the veil of smoke when locals started the fire in the stoves first thing in the morning, this gentleman came into my sight. In the next split second, I raised my camera to my eye, quickly composed and pressed the shutter. A deep exhale followed from the excitement of having "frozen" another moment in a unique place of the world. Then a quick check in the LCD screen, in hopes to relive the sense of satisfaction...

Wait! Who's this other person? Baseball cap, Sketcher shoes, camera bag... - nothing speaks louder as "out of this place" (or should I say "not belong to the scene"?) than what I just described. Ummm, it's the only other person from me that's NOT from this place, the one that I did not pay a penny to be my assistant on this trip. ;-) I guess what they say is true - you get what you paid for. The same moment can not be repeated. Here goes my historical, award-worthy photograph. :-)For those of you aspiring photographer's assistants out there, rule #1 - do not stand in your photographer's frames of photographs, especially when they are as "juicy" as the image below: