Taking photos in Albania

Hi Everyone,

I'm Dave I was wondering if you might all be able to offer me some advice

I will be travelling (driving) from Bulgaria to Albania, via Macedonia in a few weeks time - to the south of the country as it happens. I'm somewhat of a keen photographer, so i'm keen to capture 'things' especially so as no-one I know here in the UK has been to Albania. It's very much an unknown and exciting quantity in that regard. If the countryside is anything like Macedonia I am expecting it to be very spectacular [hopefully more so!]

My experience thus far from Skopje especially as I had visited the more Albanian populated areas was that I seemed to generate a disproportionate amount of interest wondering around with a camera: was I from the press? (no, no i'm just nosy ), why did I have a camera? (I think these buildings look cool). People where interested to see what I was doing, which is perfectly fine by me, for me it's about seeing the world in a totally different way.

I've been doing a bit of reading around. From what I have read Albania is a welcoming place and people like to talk to people (which i'm cool with), so to help show people what I do, i've taken the rather unusual step of printing little business cards - so people can see what I do as a hobby.

I'm keen not to offend anyone, but at the same time i'd like to take as many shots as I can. So would you guys be able to help me out a bit with the following questions:

- Are there any things I should particularly avoid taking pictures of? (Police, Military things are a total no-no of course).

- Normally I like to chat to people (granted there's a language barrier), but is it likely people will take great umbridge at asking if I can take their photo?

- Are there any things I should try to take pictures of?

- Are there any other cultural sensitivities I should be aware of?

With best wishes,
Dave

P.S. I'm more than happy to share the pictures with you guys after I am back