My guess is that she finds close-ups of her face cringe-worthy, so prefers to be photographed from further back. Even very attractive people can judge themselves harshly in photos, sometimes more so than us average lookers.
Ummm…
choie - maybe you should be more careful with albums and viewing privileges.
I got scrolling arrows pointing me to photos which seem to have no bearing on this topic.
If I knew how photobucket works, I might be able to get pics you want to keep private
Oh… thanks! I don’t actually use photobucket for anything that’s private–it’s almost 100% SDMB related, actually. A weird collection to be sure, but they’re mostly related to topics I’ve been involved with here. The only exception is connected to a Trek RPG, which itself was started by SDMB folks, albeit on another forum. I don’t care if people know I’m a tremendous geek with a penchant for Photoshop. 
But I appreciate the heads-up, usedtobe. I did think that the link would go directly to the image, rather than the Photobucket gallery. (It did for me, but that must be because I was logged in.) Should’ve just put it on my own domain.
Maybe she wanted to have a pic of her whole outfit. That was how my brother took pictures. He always took distance shots that showed the whole person. Never understood why he liked everybody to look so tiny, but I guess he wanted to show everything they were wearing.
That could be. I know a woman who just photographs terribly. It could have been a Seinfeld episode. She has a very pretty face but when photographed it just comes out all wrong. My wife is an excellent photographer and she can’t take a decent picture of this woman. So it’s possibly the case that she just doesn’t want any close-ups.
I’m with you. Perhaps I’m just not paranoid enough, but that’s all I would have assumed from this encounter. And the “I have no pictures with my baby” I don’t necessarily take literally, but rather as a poster said above, as idiomatic for “very few pictures.” My guess is that there was just either something meaningful to her about that location, no matter how mundane the background seemed to the OP, or she’s just one of many, many people who, for whatever reason, like taking photos from way back. I’ve looked through way too many family and friends photos where a completely uninteresting background takes up 95% (number exaggerated a bit, of course) of the picture and the subjects are comparatively a little speck in the frame.
She was establishing an alibi. Unnoticed by you, the phone’s date and time stamp are wrong. She needs the distance shot to establish location.
She wanted her or her baby’s fabulous new boots/entire outfit in the picture.
I think she was visiting the city and wanted a quick shot or two to send her her mom/sister/someone. Having a full length shot provides backdrop (no matter how mundane) and you probably looked approachable/safe. Maybe she didn’t see anyone she felt was non-threatening in front of the major landmarks and just wanted a quick pic for the family/FB. That’s what I would assume.
Maybe she posts on a mommy board or has a mommy blog or something. Those places are catty as hell, and maybe some of the mommies have been talking shit about how she’s never with her baby, baby’s always left with the nanny while mommy cavorts around town, and every time she DOES have the baby it just looks like she’s staging a photo op. So she wanted a picture in a random, unimpressive place to show those bitches she does tote her baby around on errands like any normal mother.
If she approaches you again and again, at various locations, sometimes at monthly intervals, sometimes on consecutive days; always with a baby, but with babies of varying ethnicities; always with the same request and always denying ever having met you previously; now that would be strange.
Please bump the thread and mention it should this occur.
In my photography portrait business, the full length and the 3/4 portrait in an environmental setting are some of my most popular poses.
Just saying…
This is pretty close to what I was going to say. To add to it, I would assume her saying she “has no pics of her and baby” was just a shorthand way to say she has no full-length shots of herself with baby… taken in this location… from about that far away. But imagine yourself wanting such a quick pic taken… saying all that seems excessive and you’d probably just give a stranger the short version too… especially if you wanted to get going and didn’t want to open up a conversation about where she’s from, what kind of photos she likes, why, etc…
While the ideal photo of you is lit correctly, with a famous or artistic background, certain positioning and zoom levels, most people settle for far less and don’t put out the effort to take (or have taken by others) anything more than average photos… because its not necessary. It sounds to me like she wasn’t from around there and just wanted a pic of herself and baby with a bit of local background more as a personal souvenir-type photo than as a postcard-type photo that others would appreciate. Looking at the picture of the location you provided, while maybe nothing special to you it is rather nice with the curvey fence, benches, brick/cobble path, and the plants and trees are obviously tended/pruned. The city I live in is quite modern and definatelly not geared towards looking nice; everything man-made is square, bland, and frankly ugly. So depending where you’re from, that spot actually looks quite nice and would be a suitable location for a quick “here’s me and baby in X city or Y part of town”.
I think there’s nothing more to it than that. Part of what set off you weird-meter could be more how she talked or her mannerisms. I occasionally meet people who just come across a bit weird, even though they are saying and doing perfectly normal things. One can easily read too far into such things and assume that something strange was happening when actually it was just a slightly unusual way of communicating coming from the other person. Ever talk to someone who says everything unusually loud… or intensely stares at you, the paper, the wall, passing cars… uses odd vocabulary or excessive amounts of technical terms in casual conversation… ? You tend to assume there must be some reason for the strange talk/mannerisms and that some situation must have been happening to cause them; but in actuality, there’s not (the person was just a weirdo).
From looking at this and judging by the size of the people sitting down I honestly think that the distance of you two when you took the pic looks perfectly fine. I was imagining she was like 50 ft. away but that looks to be about 10 ft.
If you look very carefully at that image, you will notice that the child is not actually human, but some sort of Koala-human hybrid (it’s the ears that give it away). The mother and “child” also appear to be different colours, so it’s probably not even her hybrid spawn! These are subtle giveaways that the mother did not want to be apparent in the photo, so she made sure that it was taken from too far away for people to realize her “child” was actually a stolen lab experiment.
On the subway in LA, there are often people walking about asking for money. I usually ignored them and was just thankful when they weren’t singing.
One day, I saw a young woman carrying a baby. She had a sign that said she needed help feeding the baby, so she needed donations. The baby was maybe about a year old. Very cute. She slept very soundly while her mom hit up people passing by.
The next day, I saw the same young woman. The baby was sound asleep again, but it was a different time of day. I started thinking about this, wondering if she waited until the baby fell asleep to head out to the subway.
The next day, I saw a different young woman carrying a baby. She had a sign, very similar to the first woman’s sign. Her baby was also sound asleep.
Then I realized it was the same baby.
My naive surprise still makes me laugh.
ETA: Choie, I’d love to read your work as well. I’m not a huge romance reader, but I do love both fantasy and mystery.
I honestly thought that sentence was heading for “…a doll.”
Babies pretty much look alike. How can you be sure they were the same baby.
The tattoos