Obviously there’s always a risk. You could be doing everything ‘right’ and still just happen to cross paths with a particularly shrewd security guard or a neighborhood watchdog / backyard batman/ white knight / mall cop who’s watching you like a hawk from the moment you enter
Certain places, certain crowds, certain seasons don’t augur well … if you’re feeling paranoid and don’t like the atmosphere don’t bother.
I’ve allowed my impulses to get the better of my and it got me fired, and I haven’t capped in a few weeks since, but I never actually got caught capping and as far as I know nobody ever suspected a thing once I got my technique down.
It’s not rocket science but it takes a certain level of social and spatial awareness and sleight of hand.
Firstly, look as sharp as you can, dress well, smell good - there’ an old adage in dating that what separates creepy from cute is simply whether they find you attractive so the more appealing you look the less likely you are to make their creep radar go off. I’m a tall good looking guy and while it sounds vain the truth is this just makes women less creeped out by my presence.
About 1 in 3 people have a phone in their hand anyway so it shouldn’t raise any suspicion in itself but if you want you could put shit in your pockets so it makes more sense to have it in your hand. Keeping my phone in my hand meant I was able to respond more quickly since hot women have a tendency to emerge out of nowhere then disappear as quickly as they came.
When it came to taking caps I found that holding your phone to your side wasn’t only more unnatural looking but I would often end up taking great footage of the rack of shoes or the fat old man behind them, so instead I would pretend to take a call. Hold the phone up to my ear while I’m recording with the screen set as dark as possible, using the volume buttons to start/stop the recording. Better shots and less suspicious.
Once I felt more comfortable talking to myself (I’ve been doing all my life internally anyway) it helped give me plausible deniability for why I was hanging around a sexy subject for a while. It looked more natural than having a camera on a belt buckle or poking out of a shirt pocket or whatever and it allowed you to cap them without facing them…otherwise you’re just awkwardly standing next to them unless you’re picking up items you’re pretending to be interested in which case you’re probably not getting the best shots
For instance, I see a dimepiece walk in and head to the homeware section, I would pretend I was chatting to my sister trying to buy a gift for mum or chatting to mum who was housebound with covid and needed me to buy her something, then if the subject left I would say something like ‘yeah they don’t seem to have much, I’ll go see what target have’ etc as an excuse to walk with them and get a bit more footage. If you make the call sound believable, you don’t stare at the subject and don’t blatantly follow them then you can get some solid shots because most people wouldn’t even consider that you would pretend to be on a call just to film them.
The reason our nonverbals are usually the giveaway that we’re up to something shady is because it’s not easy to act naturally whilst also hyper focusing on a subject who you’re trying to film. Over time I got better at it though - remember to break away from the subject and walk through another aisle or at least don’t just point the phone at them the whole time. Yeah sometimes you’ll never find them again but that’s better than being caught.
Think ahead - If you really want some more caps of a subject but they’re darting into different aisles you can always walk to a place where they will need to walk past to exist, you can pretend to still be on a call and get a bit more footage without raising suspicion.
But the most important is knowing when to cut your losses. You can’t hit the target every time, sometimes trying to force it will cause it to backfire. Sometimes they’re speeding through the store like they’re on a mission from god, sometimes they have their partner who’s glancing around like their bodyguard, sometimes there are too many employees around and trying to get any shots at all is a bad idea.
Even the best technique will only get you so far if you’re being greedy and trying to get caps when you know you shouldn’t. It sucks but at the end of the day they’re just pixels.
And as I should have realized capping at work is idiotic, so is capping with friends or family around - you can run away from a stranger if you have to but if you’re caught by your family or friends that could do serious damage to the relationship and your life.
Make sure you have a reason for being in whatever store you’re in, ideally go because you actually want something not only to take caps
If I was ever accused of taking candids my response was going to be to deny but also dismiss what they’re saying as paranoid then something serrated like ‘with all due respect if I was going to take creepy photos of women I would pick women I was actually attracted to’ and if they ever asked to see my camera roll I would say something like ‘ive got long distance girl so unless you want to see a bunch of semi nude photos of me you don’t want to go there’. But remember you’re still supposed to be on a call. It’s probably worth having a secret photo library for peace of mind.
If it was too obvious to deny like my flash went off or someone literally saw the camera and wanted to escalate it that’s when I’d make a dash for it and make sure I wasn’t being followed before I got to my car. Since it’s a public space I doubt they would waste much time with it but obviously that means you won’t be visiting that store again for a long time.
Bonus tip: if you get the sense that a staff member or someone has grown suspicious of you, do the opposite to what most shoplifters or shady characters do and engage them - ask them where you can find something or crack a joke with them or something, this will reframe their perception of you. In all my time in retail no shoplifters ever made an effort to be friendly to me - or if they had I didn’t notice them stealing anything.
I’ve even engaged with the subject to help put them at ease, and it’s possible to get some better caps when you’re chatting with them but that’s a risky game.
Anyway those are my tips, I’m trying to keep up my streak of no capping because it was fucking up my life but I thought I would share these in light of the posts about getting busted
. Best is you look better than half the other guys in the area. And the trick about being on a call is a gem. I went back to plugging a wired earphones so I can swing my phone in almost direction without getting too much attention. I’ve literally been capping this beautiful latina with a thong showing through her leggings, pretending to be on the phone with my girlfriend as she was supposedly breaking up with me once, and the hot girl literally turned around to tell me I’m better than that 