I live and work in Saudi Arabia where it is forbidden to take photographs in public. My house is inside the Diplomatic Quarter with lots of Arabic architecture picture ops. as well as small gardens and lots of cats.
One day-as the DQ is quite cosmopolitan- I was taking pics. of cats for friends who love them when I heard, 'NO! NO! NO!'. One of the security police was having coffee at the nearby cafe and had seen me. So I ignored him thinking-'He can come to me'. Plod,plod,plod-'What you do?'
So I put the camera onto view and he, reluctantly-watched by his colleagues-had a peep.
'Oh-nice-OK'.
Now they are completely used to seeing me clambering about in my abaya- taking shots of shadows,birds, flowers, cats, palm trees and always say 'hello'.
At least the camera has proved to be a bit of a 'barrier breaker' here.
