Asking to take photos in Russian

Question

If I want to say "can I take a photo of you (your face)", how should I proceed?

Могу снять фото на вас?

Могу снять портрет ваш?

Or neither of the aforementioned?

Both phrases are incorrect - I'm mentioning this only for a future references — shabunc, Jul 19 '18 at 17:34

score 9 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 18 '20 at 08:26

9

It's можно вас сфотографировать?

Фотографировать is Russian for "photographing", "taking a picture", and it has a direct object in accusative, so there is not need to recourse to analytic constructs similar to English ones.

As a side note, Russians are usually not particularly fond of people on street taking their pictures without a good reason, so if you just want to take a photo of a stranger on the street, it would not hurt to throw in some kind of explanation:

Простите, можно вас сфотографировать? Я из …, мне для …

"Excuse me, can I take your picture? I'm from …, and it's for …".

edited Jun 18 '20 at 08:26

Community

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answered Jul 19 '18 at 17:23

Quassnoi

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Better yet, use the form: "... разрешите Вас сфотографировать ..." offering an apology and an explanation, like @Quassnoi said. – yury10578 Jul 19 '18 at 17:54
As a side note—I've never heard a Russian use the word (с)фотографировать. They all seems to use (с)фоткать/ (с)фоткаться. – VCH250 Jul 19 '18 at 18:52
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@VCH250 LOL. I wonder (actually no, I want never know that) who are people with who you are usually contact. – Dmitriy Jul 20 '18 at 07:09
What a coincidence! When I was in Russia last year, I told a few people "можно сфотографировать вас?" precisely! I just wanted to know if there's an alternative way to tell it, but apparently not. – swrutra Aug 01 '18 at 18:48

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 19 '18 at 18:26

If one is asking complete strangers I'd go with Вы не против, если я вас сфотографирую? - it sounds to me subtly more polite and sort of less insistent rather than можно-form mentioned in the different question (which is 100% percent valid of course).

score -2 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 20 '18 at 06:26

-2

в разговорной речи так ( in colloquial speech so ) :

не правильно (not properly) : простите разрешите..

правильно: можно вас сфоткать? можно с вами сфоткаться?

edited Jul 20 '18 at 06:26

shabunc

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answered Jul 20 '18 at 05:00

geforce

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Too many mistakes (almost in every word) for a person pretending to be a teacher... – Dmitriy Jul 20 '18 at 07:12

Asking to take photos in Russian

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