I was in a car when saw these kids playing with marbles on the roadside in the Philippines. This was one of those moments where I thought that this little slice of street life might look interesting (before street photography was something I took a greater interest in). Luckily there were no cars passing in the lane next to me and we were stuck in some slow-moving traffic, but I was shooting with my 35mm lens through glass and had to frame the shot with a crop in mind as we were a bit too far away to fill the frame.
What struck me was just how close to the road they were. These kids couldn't have been older than 8 or 9 years old and they decided to set their marble game up just inches from the road edge. But it's not like they were short on floor space. Look at how much pavement is behind them! I remember one of my primary school teachers telling us the tale of that kid who was playing with his football in the street instead of just holding it like a good boy, and he kicked it a little harder than usual and it landed in the middle of the road, and he ran between parked cars into the road to get his ball, not realising that he was running into the path on an oncoming car, and the driver had no time to react. Yeah, I thought about that tale when I took this, just replace that football with an over-enthusiastically flicked marble.
But then again these are hardened street children, not soft, pampered wuss-bags.
