So this dude from some part of the world walks into the beach and pulls his t-shirt off and walks neck deep into the water. I’m like what the heck!
First off, i would not even leave my hand kerchief unattended in a public space, secondly Elliots is quite slippery in a lot of places and no one even cared to warn him. Thankfully the life gaurds were around real quick watching every step of this guy. Something happens to a foriegner in the beach then that would be a PR catastrophy, more than that the lives of these fishermen boys (lifeguards) at stake!
Nevertheless, i was having fun at what this dude was doing and there was this man from nowhere who came sat besides me and started asking me annoying questions as to how much my camera costs and what was so different about this camera than the other ones that looked smaller and more stylish, et all…!
Finally he asked me where from this white guy in the water was from and i told him i dont know. He gave me the looks as if i was a be rotten cockroach and i deserved not to live. He asked me why i was shooting pictures and what i was gonna do with the pictures. I lately realized that he though that i was hired by this foreigner in the waters to shoot pictures of him! What the ….. (i was bowled over completely by this one!)
As if i had not enough shit around me already i had this guy asking me painful questions in the middle of an interesting candid session. Now if i tell him i was shooting for fun im sure he would have raised hell and tried to make some quick bucks out of me, considering the fact that i had 2500 dollars worth of camera and glass in my bag i was an easy fish to catch. Not forgetting the instances where i have run into trouble with our “friendly” neighborhood boys at the beach who want to try your camera because they think its cool, i decided i will play this safe.
I told him i was doing a “Documentary”, well technically i was right. I was documenting what people were doing there. He got more curious and poked in more (remember he does not understand a wee bit of english) and asked, “i dont understand, whats a documentary?” (in tamil, “pruiyalaye, documentari’nna inna ba?”) and then i fired my big nuke…
“What comes in the DISCOVERY CHANNEL”, (“Discover Channel’la varume, adhu baa”, me in local chennai thamizh). He looked at me as if i was Jesus Christ who walked on water to bless his soul, and i said to myself “phew, that was a close call, now that its over…” and i had this sense of accomplishment!
He then started giving me photography ideas, “why don’t you shoot me, why don’t you shoot the hoardings, why don’t you shoot the sand, the dog, the crow, bajji kadai.. ” on and on… until i finally put and end to it.
I picked up my cell phone and make a spook call “I need some cops over here since the crowd is getting worser” and the guy got the message, stopped fiddling with my camera bag and absconded with my bottle of coke. (I’m glad it was not the camera bag!)
Sometimes the things we do for photography, duh!
Canon EOS 400D with the Tamron EF F/4 – 5.6. Aperture Priority, F/11 at 1/200th of a Second; Tripod.
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