Have you ever been on a forum somewhere and read something like " I don't think anybody has the right to invade anybody's privacy, I certainly wouldn't like it!"

That statement's normally made by landscape shooters and people who shoot their cats sleeping. Not a thing wrong with shooting those things but the misguided belief that shooting somebody you don't know is intrusive/rude/selfish, is just projection. It's not based on experience or knowledge and if you're going to learn from somebody you want them to have those two things. We've got a rich history to look back on, to learn from. My photography got better when I started too look for guidance in that history rather than in forums.

It helped me get over any fear I had of shooting strangers. I just knew it was a good thing to do, even if the pictures were bad it was something worth doing, it was a good thing. I'd had that proven to me, I'd seen the work, seen what it could do, I believed in it and still do. I will defend it and have defended it to strangers I've shot, there is no hiding place when you're open with what you're doing. There's nothing to hide from, you don't get "busted" when you're seen, you get busted when you're up to no good.

I shot this girl at 1:48 am on the 22/Nov/2005. It was Diane's birthday and we were slaughtered, we will have been drinking for 12 hrs by this point. I spotted the girl in front of me, she looked a little lost, she wasn't joining in with the conversation with her friends round the table. I am drawn to people who look lonely, don't know why that is.

Anyway I shot her and she noticed

I'm really glad she did. She ended up coming to sit with us, turns out she was from Portugal and hadn't known the girls she was with long, she met them in local church (church goers love a drink). She lit up when I shot her (pardon the pun if it is one) she turned out to be a real fire cracker, a good laugh and a warm human being pretty much alone in Manchester. Sadly we lost her number, we were already blind drunk.

There's a couple of reasons why its one of my favorite photographs. I do think I caught a little of how she was feeling in that moment, I can't know for sure. One thing I do know is that she liked  that I tried to.