So, this afternoon I was strolling around with my camera, seeking out interesting things to photograph. I do this from time to time.
The town in which I currently live is not exactly renowned for its exciting photo opportunities; it's a sleepy place, chiefly famous for having given its name to somewhere much larger (and I'd imagine infinitely more stimulating) in the United States of America. But wherever you are in the world, you can never entirely dismiss the possibility that a tiger will escape from a zoo and cross dozens of miles of farmland undetected, before crashing into your town centre with carnage on its mind. So sometimes it's a good idea to dawdle, with your lens cap off just in case.
Alas, no tigers today. But these two fellows came up to me, and asked me to take their picture. So I did. Why wouldn't I? While I was ushering them to stand closer together and eyeing them through the viewfinder, I did however wonder who exactly was supposed to be benefiting from this Kodak moment.
I didn't want a picture of them. They would never get to see the picture I was taking. In fact, I was fairly certain I was going to delete the image directly off the camera the second they were out of my eye-line. In the end, I kept it because it amuses me. I like to think they wandered off and one said to the other: "Oh, maybe we should have given him our camera...."
I wonder if they might not be international celebrities, who have somehow fallen under my own radar. (After all, if it isn't on MSN I don't know about it. I couldn't spot, say, Katy Perry in a line-up.) Perhaps they're so used to being the focus of attention that they saw the camera and thought: "Oh, no. A Paparazzo. Well, let's play nice. If we give him a picture now, maybe he'll leave us alone on the way to our secret film premiere."
If any readers have any alternative explanations for why two men would ask a stranger to take a photograph of them they were never going to see, I'd love to hear them. Baffling.
Oh, and in the unlikely circumstance under which those two blokes stumble across this blog: there it is, guys, there's your photo. Two quid for a digital download version, a fiver for a hard copy....
The town in which I currently live is not exactly renowned for its exciting photo opportunities; it's a sleepy place, chiefly famous for having given its name to somewhere much larger (and I'd imagine infinitely more stimulating) in the United States of America. But wherever you are in the world, you can never entirely dismiss the possibility that a tiger will escape from a zoo and cross dozens of miles of farmland undetected, before crashing into your town centre with carnage on its mind. So sometimes it's a good idea to dawdle, with your lens cap off just in case.
Alas, no tigers today. But these two fellows came up to me, and asked me to take their picture. So I did. Why wouldn't I? While I was ushering them to stand closer together and eyeing them through the viewfinder, I did however wonder who exactly was supposed to be benefiting from this Kodak moment.
I didn't want a picture of them. They would never get to see the picture I was taking. In fact, I was fairly certain I was going to delete the image directly off the camera the second they were out of my eye-line. In the end, I kept it because it amuses me. I like to think they wandered off and one said to the other: "Oh, maybe we should have given him our camera...."
I wonder if they might not be international celebrities, who have somehow fallen under my own radar. (After all, if it isn't on MSN I don't know about it. I couldn't spot, say, Katy Perry in a line-up.) Perhaps they're so used to being the focus of attention that they saw the camera and thought: "Oh, no. A Paparazzo. Well, let's play nice. If we give him a picture now, maybe he'll leave us alone on the way to our secret film premiere."
If any readers have any alternative explanations for why two men would ask a stranger to take a photograph of them they were never going to see, I'd love to hear them. Baffling.
Oh, and in the unlikely circumstance under which those two blokes stumble across this blog: there it is, guys, there's your photo. Two quid for a digital download version, a fiver for a hard copy....
6 comments:
Not a reason for their request but aren't they oddly reminiscent of models for the "American Gothic" painting. Only need the pitchfork. Perhaps late trick-or-treaters.
Damn, yes, you're right. They are. That's fantastic.
The guy on the right looks like a small Jim Broadbent.
Ah, yes, I can see that one too. So Jim Broadbent's little brother and some other guy decided to recreate the painting American Gothic. They were on their way to get a pitchfork off a friend on the other side of town.
They saw me with my camera, and thought "We should mark the production of this magnificent recreation. We should get that bloke to take a picture. I mean, he's bound to put it online somewhere."
I'm starting to piece it together.
Could you tell me how you got links on the side of your blog into image lists like that. I can't find out how to anywhere.
If you followed a tutorial, could you paste the link.
Cheers
Go to Customise. Choose Add a Gadget. Add a HTML/Javascript gadget, and in that box write the HTML markup code (which it won't let me write here, so here's a link to it):
http://www.mainspringcms.net/pages/make_a_picture_into_a_link/
And you're done. You can put as many picture links in the one box as you like.
The images I used I uploaded to imageshack.
Hope that helps.
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