My biggest confrontation of the sort was in the San Jose flea market, a few months ago. I was with Rolling Red (you might remember her from some brief posts here). At one point, out of nowhere, a woman came yelling at her, demanding to know why "she was taking pictures of her kids". All she had done was point her camera in their general direction. We were photographing people, kids among them, but those specific kids hadn't been our subjects.
Explaining to this woman that her kids were not in our pictures did not work. We even showed her the pics in our istD and istDs, to no avail. She kept yelling and saying she'd call the police. When RR--understandably pissed off I'd say--said something about people being "f*ing paranoid", the woman completely flipped, and called 911. The cop that came, from the market's police station, saw what was happening immediately. He cooly told us we'd have to go with him, and as soon as we were out of the woman's eyesight, he said "don't worry, just follow me a bit more, and be careful about crazy people like that next time." He was going to let us go, but he had to take us to their office when he got a call from there to check what had been going on. The other cops were equally nice, although they had to take our names and other data. They agreed that photography was not prohibited, and just said that it is understandable that some people would freak out if you photograph their kids. During the discussion with the woman, I was all "We are street photographers, and we take pictures of people and interesting situations and such. Your kids are really cute, and if I had taken their picture I would show it to you and offer you a copy--why are you being confrontational? Can we just be friends?" It was interesting to see the (little) effect that politeness had on this crazy person.I think she felt she was saving the world or something. In general, I try to avoid these situations and just walk away, as all they do is take my time. I have to be in a special mood to actually want to get in one of those conversations, and it's usually just for my own amusement. Any picture opportunities are usually gone when conversations like these happen. j -- Juan Buhler http://www.jbuhler.com photoblog at http://photoblog.jbuhler.com
