I seems to me that you were the victim of assault. You were doing
nothing wrong but were threatened by a complete stranger. I would have
asked the police to arrest the woman so that I could press charges.
Juan Buhler wrote:
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
--
When you're worried or in doubt,
Run in circles, (scream and shout).
