On Rudeness and Obliviousness

Posted on October 6, 2011 in Photography Vacation Spring 2007

Watch where you stand when taking a photograph

She yelled at me. “Get out of the way so the rest of us can see the rainbow.” I muttered something about her solving the problem by standing next to me and slinked off to the next stop on our five mile walk around Old Faithful.

The Universe meted out its punishment over the next few days in various ways. I saw plenty of examples of similar rude behavior by photographers. There was, for example, the guy at the overlook for the Upper Falls of the Yellowstone who hogged the best spot for about ten minutes. I stood by patiently, tapped my foot, cleared my throat, but he kept pulling out cameras and ever so carefully lining up the shots. When I finally got in with my tripod for an HDR shot, I finished in a minute and got out of the way.

Move the scene to the Oxbow Bend at Grand Teton National Park. These people didn’t just get in the way, they walked down into the foreground of everyone’s picture! So the rest of us were left waiting for several minutes while they mucked around down there. When they finally finished and climbed back up, no one said anything. We just waited on the hilltop and as soon as they were clear, took our pictures. Again, even though I was shooting HDR, I was finished in less than a minute. But they had held me up.

Final example (with evidence) was the woman who kept zig-zagging in front of the Chapel of the Transfiguration at Grand Teton. She just stayed in the shot. Never minded the rest of us. Just gaped at the scene and stopped to take one photo after another.

I finally thought that I had got rid of her when she moved to one side. But as soon as I pressed the shutter, she did a fast backtrack right into the shot:

Lady, if you surf the Internet like you take photos, there’s a chance you’ll find yourself here and feel shame. But I suspect you’ll be too busy seeking the next new experience to care.