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All-time funniest comment you've gotten while shooting


chris_jordan3

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Following up Ellis' great thread about the worst advice ever, how about this: what's the funniest comment anyone's ever made to you while you were shooting?

 

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I gave my all time favorite in the other thread, but here's a close second: I'm shooting on a cold rainy night in downtown Seattle a couple of years ago, and this guy walks by and stops and looks for a minute and says "just a wild guess: you don't have a girlfriend, right?"

 

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ha!! i had to admit at the time that i didn't...

 

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~cj

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OK, boys and girls. I can't wait to see/hear what this will bring.

Very enjoyable thread from Ellis. Chris' new inquiry is the perfect

follow-up.

 

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Chris, may I assume that wedding photographers horror stories are

out? Most of mine were awful at the time but funny in retrospect.

 

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____________

 

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OK, here's mine.

 

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As a wedding photog I always got the qip, "Got film in there?" My

answer, "Usually."

 

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S.

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I was shooting pictures of Seattle's Kingdome before they blew it up

and while I was waiting for a cloud to pass an extremely intoxicated

homeless man staggered up and wanted to look at the groundglass on my

Speed Graphic. He bent over, peered through it, then, shocked, stood

up again and squinted at me and asked in a kind of pleading tone, "Is

that upside down or something?" And then he fell over, dizzy. It was

too much for him.

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I had the ultralight aluminum 8x10" Gowland monorail pointed toward a

regatta of tall ships headed up the Hudson (alas, they changed their

route due to low water conditions, so no good shots to be had in the

end). A guy comes up to me and says, "I bet that's the kind of camera

they would have used in the days of those ships" (many of which

predated the invention of photography, lightweight aluminum monorails

aside).

 

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Then there was the drunk who tapped me on the shoulder in Tampere and

went into a long tirade in Finnish, occasionally making the motion of

shooting a rifle with accompanying sound effects. In retrospect, I

suppose it was funny.

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I've got two. I was under my cloth (black on the inside, white out)

focusing on a blown-out van amongst rubble in an awful, abandoned

section of Jersey City, NJ. I was made aware somehow of a presence

behind me. I dropped the cloth and spun around to see an

African-American man standing 10 feet behind me. I nodded to him, and

then he smiled and said, "This ain't no neighborhood to be hanging out

under no white sheet." We both laughed at that.

 

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Just after "Bridges of Madison County," came out as a movie I was

shooting a truss bridge in Rockingham County, VA. I heard someone

walking up to me on the gravel road. I turned and saw an old

farmer-type watching me. I nodded hello, and he asked what I was

doing. I told him that I was being paid to photograph old truss

bridges throughout VA. He was silent for a beat and then he

responded, "We don't need your kind around here," and walked away. I

can only assume...

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Is it an indulgence to relate two episodes? I shall, anyway.

 

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1. I was set up for a record cover pic of a somewhat 'celeb' rock

singer beside an unusual structure in North Sydney. As the

moment of capture drew ever nearer so did a middle-aged,

mildly intoxicated street-dweller in an overcoat. He strode right

up, peroused the Linhof Technika and queried the accessory

spirit-level inserted into the shoe on top of the body. "What's that

for?" he asked. "To make sure everything is level," was my reply

to which he opened his overcoat and took out a builder's level

and starting checking the nearby bus seat, power pole, garbage

bin. "I'm always amazed how many things aren't level," he said

as he sauntered off.

 

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2. I was shooting a shopping complex in Darwin, a remote

far-flung outpost of civilisation. I was annoyed at having missed

a wonderful opportunity for a personal shot of a queue of

barefooted Aboriginals lined up at an island stall for a shoe

repair company when I had another encounter. As I flicked my

darkcloth out to ready it for it's enshrouding task and very tall (6ft

3in) young man came over and in a brusque menacing manner

enquired: "I suppose you think you're a magician?" to which I

instantaneously responded, "You think I'm going to pull a rabbit

out of a hat; I'm actually going to pull a hair (hare) out of my ass!"

He shambled off. Next thing I was being abused by this

aggressive, loud woman (musn't upset the patrons, must I?)

She accused me of being rude to her 11 year old son. Mind you,

he was beside her and her language was like Velvia compared

to my subtle EPN remark.

 

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That's it from me for now, cheers Chris - great topic.

 

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Walter Glover

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I was deep in the most rural areas of Haiti, and shot a photo of a

striking elderly lady in front of her mud and thatch home and had

given her a Polaroid as a thank you. She looked up with piercing brown

eyes and quietly said: (in creole)

 

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"Your machine speaks the truth too quickly!"

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I had someone tell me that the thing they always liked about

photography was the wonderful math of exposure. How one f stop was

exactly the same as two shutter speeds. I said I thought the proper

ratio was more like 1:1 on those, and the indignant person got out

his OM camera (see? now this? see?) and proved to me that he was

right and that I didn't know what I was talking about. I've always

wondered how he did that. Must have something to do with the rule of

thirds.

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Perfect timing for this thread, since my "all time funniest" just

happened 5 days ago...

 

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I was out shooting spring landscapes with my Fuji GX680 (OK, not

large format but the next closest thing) at Potato Creek State Park

in N. Indiana. I was crouched along a trail, tripod-mounted camera

pointed low to the ground at an interestingly textured rotting stump,

cable release at the ready. Two hikers walked by, and in all

seriousness asked me the one-word question "Birdwatching?"

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I was killing time in a small upstate NY town.A train horn sounded

in the distance,so I walked to the RR tracks with my 4x5 camera on

its tripod.I snapped the train as it passed,and walked back to my

car.Several minutes later,a woman drove up & asked,"why were you

taking a picture of those kids on the corner?.They think you are a

pedophile!!!!!!!!!!"(At this point,if I speak,Im guilty!!How does one

respond to such an accusation?)I then explained that I had taken a

pix of the passing train,and hadnt noticed the kids on the corner.In

a prosecutorial tone she suggested she was going to call the police.I

said"go ahead & call the police,Im thinking of charging you with

harrassment"!I then turned to her & said:if those teenagers were home

studying & doing their homework,and not loitering on a street

corner,they wouldnt have to worry about being molested by me or

anyone!And maybe you should get back in your car and mind your own G-

d damned business?I then drove off into the sunset.Since this day,I

think about what am doing,and what some moron watching,thinks Im

doing.Pretty scary!

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A while back I was hiking along the top of a canyon with my wife when

we came across an abandoned stream gage mounted on a platform that

was hung from the side of a cliff and accessed by an old metal

ladder. Thinking that the platform might be an interesting

perspective for a picture down the canyon, I cautiously went over the

side of the cliff and down the ladder. My wife, who complains often

that I have my camera set up too close to cliff faces, would not even

go near the cliff, but she stayed up top with my camera equipment

while I checked things out. (No use hauling down all the LF gear

before scoping things out.) The ladder and platform turned out to be

surprisingly sturdy for as old as they looked. When I got down to

the platform I noticed a large rock sitting on the edge of it.

Thinking to have a little fun with my wife, I pushed the rock off

into the water while simultaneously doing my best impression of the

cartoon-like falling off the cliff voice. Oh noooooo......splash!

The rock made, what seemed to me, just about a man-sized splash when

it hit the water. There was a brief moment of silence from above and

then I heard my wife say " well, if you're going to go swimming, you

might as well take your cameras." This was followed shortly by what

seemed to me to be a backpack-sized splash. I took me a moment, while

I checked to make sure my cameras were not floating downstream,

before this struck me as funny.

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Actually, I've been looking for an excuse to relate this here, so

this thread is very welcome.

 

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It wasn't actually WHILE I was shooting, but . . .

 

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We were staying at a veyr nice B&B outside of Ghent, Belgium, last

year, and across the street was a very nice, pretty pond. I went out

one morning, set up the camera by the street and shot the picture of

the pond as I saw it. Heard the next morning from Ingrid, who ran the

B&B, that her next-door neighbor, a lady who was, shall we say, not

entirely right in the head, had called her father, absolutely

indignant that this %^&*( MAN was out in the street, photographing

her through her window! Her father (who lived in the next house down)

looked out his window at me, and came back to his phone to tell his

daughter (rather dryly, as we heard it) that the camera was pointed

the other way.

 

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Tony

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This isn't a funny comment, but, I have to say that about 20 years

ago, I shot a wedding for someone that worked at a bank. I was

impressed by the very large photo order she placed. Then about 3

months afterwards I found out she was arrested for embezzelment...

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About two years ago, I was shooting in the mountains at medium

elevation in a place much frequented by hikers. The picture I was

trying to capture was a succession of backlightened mountains

outlines. I was turning my back on another possible shot of alpine

scenary not well lightened at that time of the day in my feeling.

Then a couple of hikers stopped close to me and the man whispered in

his wife's ear: "What a large camera (Toyo 45)he has, it must be an

Hasselblad...at least!" But the woman evidently wanted to have the

last word. She told me loudly and with quite a bit of anger: "Why do

you shoot this direction? the opposite direction is much nicer!"

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A few years ago, I went with my photography class to one of the most

religious Jewish settlements in the West Bank, near Bethlehem, called

Bat Ayin. It's a remote, mountainous settlement in the judean hills

near Jerusalem, with an exraordinary view of the hills. I was making

a photograph of that view, when a settler came next to me on a donkey

and said: "You should have been here yesterday. The sky was cloudy

and then the sun broke through them and we were sure that the Mesiah

had arrived!!"

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In 1991 I was traveling with a 4x5 field camera in the Jordanian desert, not too

far from Petra. I trying to photograph a dry 'wadi', a deep seasonal river valley

cut deep into the earth, from above, and was having some problems with

focus. My set-up had attracted the attention of a group of nomads (Bedouin),

particularly the children. Who insisted that I have tea before continuing. I had

tea and coffee and a banal conversation with the father. His oldest (?) son,

who appeared to want to join the coversation, but was too bashful, finally burst

in, "why don't you tilt the lens 10 degrees down?"

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This is not a funy comment but perhaps a funny story. My girlfriend

and I were wandering around the alleys of Varinasi, India a couple of

years ago. I stopped to photograph some pilars and the usual crowd

gathered. This is good, because my girlfriend enjoyes shooting

people. Anyway, I got all my stuff out and began the long process of

taking the photo. As we all do when in crowds, I was trying to keep

very good track of all my stuff. Suddenly I could not find my Pentax

digital spot. I stood straight up and said to my girlfriend in a very

concerned manner that I could not find my spot meter. No one but us

spoke English, but they all obviously became very concerned and

actually began looking around the area as we did, even though they had

no idea what we were looking for. I found the meter under some stuff

in my tripod apron in a minute or two and held it up and smiled.

Everyone smiled and cheered. What wonderful people.

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I was set up with a 4x5 on a downtown street with a huge bag of

stuff, llght meter around my neck, the whole shebang. A woman asked

me, "Are you a photographer"?

 

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I looked at all the stuff, looked puzzled for a minute and

said, "What gave me away?"

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I was photographing some water pockets on the Navajo reservation,

when some kids came over and started splashing around right in front

of me. Realizing, of course, that it was their water pocket and I

was a guest on their land, I very tactfully asked them to kindly get

their butts out of the way so I could shoot. So, what do they do?

They line up and strike a pose and started insisting that I take

their picture. So I did the old �click the shutter without pulling

the dark slide� trick and said ok now clear out, whereupon the older

one of the group looks up and says: �Lets see the Polaroid�.

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