I’d like to get some pictures of fat people eating (example1; example2). I’m in Orlando and it seems like an ideal opportunity to combine two quintessentially American themes: obesity and theme parks. Also, a theme park is a great place to walk around with a big camera and lens without attracting attention. I would like to find a theme park where there are a lot of restaurants, a lot of fat people (aside from myself), and most of the restaurants have outdoor seating.
Recommendations?
[You might ask why I am embarking upon this project. Part of it is that my editor at Hearst Magazines back in the 1990s was ecstatic about any photo that included a fat person. Most of it is that I think that better diet pills will be developed some time within the next 100 years. Also theme parks may lose their appeal for Americans (for one thing we might become too poor/heavily taxed to afford to travel frivolously). The photos will then become a curiosity for people in the year 2100.]
Update: http://philip.greenspun.com/images/20091213-epcot/fat-people-eating has the photos from a few hours spent at Epcot. Also available as a slide show (medium-sized photos or big photos).
Find a place where they have an all you can eat for a fixed price. I am always amazed by how much people can eat. A learned skill over time.
How about “Downtown Disney” – a series of stores/restaurants/outdoor promenade?
Find a lower income area with a nearby Golden Corral. There are at five of these eaterys in the greater Orlando area. For some inexplicable reason, grossly overweight folks seem to have a shameless passion for Golden Corrals.
They offer an all-you-can-eat buffet that becomes a veritable cattle call (pun intended) nearly any night of the week.
The lunch time crowd is mainly folks on their lunch hour, but the dinner crowd brings out the heavyweights in force. It is amazing.
Just for curiosity: shouldn’t you ask those people before taking pictures of them? I mean, legally speaking, not ethically.
Whenever I’m out with my 70-200, everybody wants to be my friend. I don’t know how you don’t attract attention 🙂
TimB: Thanks for the Downtown Disney suggestion. I hope that they have a lot of tables outside and food that people take away from restaurants to eat at picnic-style tables.
AD: A Golden Corral won’t work. People are going to wonder why someone is in there taking pictures instead of eating. That’s the beauty of the theme park; everyone there has a camera. (Same answer to Bob: theme park operators often encourage customers to bring cameras of any shape or size.)
Dino: If it were illegal to take pictures of people in a public place there wouldn’t be too many photos in newspapers. There are not separate laws for newspaper photographers and ordinary citizens. The use of a photo for advertising, e.g., to promote a product, generally requires the consent of the people recognizable in the photo (a “model release”).
As to the why, for a historical record of one of America’s core competencies: the production and maintenance of fat people, for which I am thankful. From the Lays delivery man to the expensive cardiologist, many livelihoods depend on the efficient production of fat people.
In fact if American’s all ate responsibly, what would that do to our GDP?
My wife and I have always been astounded by the number of overweight (seriously overweight) people at Disney. We lost our table at a restaurant to one who couldn’t walk into the restaurant and therefore needed the outside table. The EPCOT world showcase has numerous outside cafe style/take away eateries, but admission is required. I would therefore second the Downtown Disney suggestion above as next best.
Ha! And I thought I was the only one who reveled in this phenom.
I always thought “why are the people here SO fat?”. At Disney, hang out by the People Mover. Fat people don’t like to walk and will wait in line for that thing….
I Find the Indiana State Fair to be most wonderful for this sort of thing… I’d assume this is true for most State Fairs though… I mean really, if you are inline for a deep fried twinkie…
Downtown Disney has some outside seating areas, as I recall from being there in October. Now that the temps are falling into the 60’s at night, the outside dinner crowd will be sparse, so get there for the lunch crowd. The restaurants there are probably a bit too expensive for the true food lovers. They’re all at Cici’s or the Golden Corral, but getting phots there without drawing attention to yourself will be a bit of a challenge.
… and there’s always People of Wal-Mart if you simply wish to gawp at the large and unsightly.
Wow. What’s sad about this picture is that child’s mom is probably sitting at that table. And it’s probably the best day to him being at a Disney park. And if he ever stumbles across this picture when he’s older, or if his mom finds it and is embarrassed, it will ruin that entire memory. You could have at least cropped the pic so it didn’t show faces or the child. What a horrible job you have. I don’t believe that people should over indulge and they should be healthy. But posting pictures of them makes you just as awful as they are. They’re overweight, but you’re a hypocrite. Let’s be honest Philip, nobody’s life a perfect. That includes yours.