is it just me......

nickjohnwatson

nickjohnwatson

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Or do you also find that people talk to you a lot when out with your camera? (I'm not complaining) just saying that it seems to attract people. I was out today and loads of people were stopping and asking questions, all friendly stuff like 'have you got any nice shots' and 'you got what you're after?' Etc. It doesn't bother me at all just something I've noticed when out and about!
Anyone else?
 
It's just you ... I've got a sort of "don't bother me" type of face :D
 
Get a fair bit, often - 'Nikon - bet that takes good photos...' ...yeah it does and so can my phone ;)

Get a few experts as well, last time I was back in Scotland up the top of a mountain taking a photo of the missus and an old guy pops up (no one for hundreds of miles, but there is always one isn't there ;) ) saying I am facing completely the wrong and that's fine if I want 'dark' photos....guess they never had flash in the good old days.

Just smile and go along with them ;)

Genuinely nice folk who want a shot, handle it, I always let them have a play...be surprised who hasn't used a dslr...it's only a d90 I've got :)
 
SnappyHappy said:
saying I am facing completely the wrong and that's fine if I want 'dark' photos....

Genuinely nice folk who want a shot, handle it, I always let them have a play...be surprised who hasn't used a dslr...it's only a d90 I've got :)
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I have had this too, I say im going for a siloette so I should be fine ;)

I also have back button focus, so they take a shot and its blurred - not every one can take a good photo. But thats my warped sense of humour.
 
We went to the zoo for my sons birthday last week. Me with my D7000 and 70-200 attached and my dad with his trusty Olympus E420. One of the older zoo keepers came up and asked my dad if it was a "real camera". When dad replied it was digital the keeper was quite miffed, telling us how much better "real cameras" are and how he hates digital.
The strange thing is we had the exact same conversation with the same guy about six months ago! I can only imagine he gets really excited when he sees someone shooting film :)
 
I always say Hi to fellow togs, when I see them, just as we have something in common, if you know what they shoot, you can say what youve seen ie fungus/wild flowers,insects and tell them or show them where to look, also birders like to share info, (to a certain extent LOL)
 
I was in Philadelphia recently at Love Park, where the famous "LOVE sculpture" resides. And I was trying to take one of those arm-length self portraits of me and the missus (with my Rebel, not 5D. I'm not stupid :). When a rather LARGE fellow walks up and asks if he can take a photo us in front of the statue. Needless to say I didn't oblige. He got angry and said something to the effect of "Man! If I wanted to steal your camera I would have done it already". Then he asked for a quarter. I gave him 2 and he dropped one, which set all his friends scrambling for the coins. In all the hubbub I hadn't realised that I was now surrounded by at least half a dozen "street folk" of various description.

Luckily a few cops on bikes swooped in and told us to beat it. But before we left one of the cops asked to see the camera! He said he's a Nikon guy and would love to carry his camera around all day on his beat because he sees the strangest things, but it's against regulations. He reckons it's because it could distract him from the business at hand. I would have to agree.

Long story short... no, I don't normally get approached, but have done twice in the past week.
 
treeman said:
And if they do talk to me, they'll get short shrift ;)
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Why? Really why? What does 5 mins and politeness cost?

Different scenario but a similar situation. 3 years ago myself and a good friend participated in the Macmillan Longest day challenge. (Which is to play 4 rounds of golf in 24 hours)

We spiced it up a bit, played 72 holes on 4 courses on one day , and then a further 72 holes the next day - walking each course and sponsored shirts etc... (yes we went for it.)

7th course Thorpeness in Suffolk checking in with the pro one of the members in there politely asked what we were doing as he noticed the liveried shirts. Explained where we were from, what courses we had played and where we were going for the 8th... 5 min chat. He pulled his wallet out and gave us £100 as he had recently lost his sister.



Surely it is human nature just to be polite and spend if only a few minutes with people who are interested in your hobby... :shrug:
 
jspash said:
When a rather LARGE fellow walks up and asks if he can take a photo us in front of the statue.
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I often offer to take pics for people, as I know what its like you seem to have been on holiday alone, mind you I always have my camera so they know your not a chancer, wouldnt pass someone my camera if they offered, I do just give them a compact PAS
 
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one night i was taken some scenic pics down in a secluded area and i must of spoken to about 5 photographers in less then a hour all with the camera and tri-pod too
just shows how many people are now taking it up with it been a cheap hobby to start
 
wegotitugetit said:
one night i was taken some scenic pics down in a secluded area and i must of spoken to about 5 photographers in less then a hour all with the camera and tri-pod too
just shows how many people are now taking it up with it been a cheap hobby to start
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Cheap?!
 
I'd say its usual for me to end up chatting with complete strangers when I'm out shooting. Learned some interesting stuff about local info etc and met some lovely people, they far outway the ammount of undesirable encounters
People seem to enjoy talking about general photography, what you're up to, and what they enjoy
Always got time for some camera geekery and enjoy sharing knowledge and opinions
Daft not to :thumbs:
 
I get people coming up to me if I'm painting out in the open air, much the smae sort of conversations. "Are you a real artist", "No I'm actually a hologram" :D
 
artyman said:
"No I'm actually a hologram" :D
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You should follow that by "My time on your planet has come to an end .... i must return to my people......" then start wobbling around and making alien type noises... LOL

sorry me being silly! would be funny tho!:)
 
M.A.Gibson said:
You should follow that by "My time on your planet has come to an end .... i must return to my people......" then start wobbling around and making alien type noises... LOL

sorry me being silly! would be funny tho!:)
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Seconded :lol:
 
I like to be friendly but some people just like to impart their wisdom regardless - One guy on seeing the Pentax strap on my Fuji proceeded to tell me all about his new Pentax (although he didn't know what it was), despite me telling him 4 times that it was just the strap from my old MX he appeared quite offended when on handing him the camera he discovered it was in actual fact a Fuji, with a Nikon lens.
 
I'm always happy to say hello. It's free and I'd rather be pleasant to people than be a miserable old git. So I might miss a shot, fine, I'll get another, I'm not being paid for them.
 
I'm always happy to chat now, whether it be about cameras, the shot I'm after or pretty much anything.

I have had some slightly strange looks when I've been peering intently at a camera wielder's belly area trying to see the make/model number - not that it makes much difference apart from me being able to make (slightly!) more valuable comments about cameras and lenses I've owned or used.

Strangest one was a few years ago on holiday. We had pulled over because I had spotted a buzzard soaring at road level (we were in the mountains in Crete) and I wanted a shot at it. Hung around for about 10 minutes waiting for said beastie to soar back along the lower road (searching for tarmac generated thermals at a guess) and another hire car pulled into the layby. Out climbed a couple, each bearing an SLR (this was back before DSLRs were affordable to the masses, so all of us had film bodies) and they started peering about trying to see what I was trying to shoot. After a short while, I heard a voice speaking in French, asking what I was looking at, so I replied as best I could (it had been a long time since I had used French and I had my Greek language head on!). We had quite a long chat about the joys of the hobby and the respective merits of our systems - agreeing that the ergonomics of the bodies were most important (especially with film, since it's the recording medium that makes most difference - OK, lenses have some effect but IMO, most lenses at a given price point turn in similar performance, whatever the name on the lens cap!). In fact, the wife preferred the handling of Nikons but had plumped for Canon so she could use his lenses rather than having 2 systems!

If I'm in a bar and someone wants to chat and/or play with my equipment (fnar, fnar!), I'll usually oblige and let them take a shot or 2. If they're in the bar for the day (or on the beach the bar looks after (rents the beds/brollies), I've even been known to walk back to our appartment and do a print or 2 for them, using my Canon Selphy dyesub postcard printer. Sometimes, that 20-30 eurocent investment has earned me a glass of Ouzo or a fruit juice - a better return than most stock markets give!

Of course, you'll always get the "Oh, that's an expensive camera, I bet it takes good photos." brigade and it can take an effort not to give them a sarky response but politeness costs nothing so I try not to rise to the bait!
 
I like that people stop and talk, its nice that so many people take an interest in this hobby. I've even sold a couple of prints off the back of strangers coming upto me and asking about the pics, handy to have my Flickr pics saves to my phone for easy access to show people if they are interested lol
 
I stop and talk to people quite a lot as I find it interesting how other people view things. I also love to look at other peoples equipment, knowing damn well I could never afford it.

I got chatting to a photographer at a rugby league game once and he was showing me his kit. Some of his lenses cost as much as a small car!!!!!!
 
what about the times when you are taking photos and you pray to god that the people dont talk to you..... i was up carlton hill in edinburgh on friday night and a couple of neds walked up with a bottle of cider each. as they were getting closer i was wondering how easy it would be to hit one of them with the top of my tripod if things got ugly :-D
 
higgeh said:
what about the times when you are taking photos and you pray to god that the people dont talk to you..... i was up carlton hill in edinburgh on friday night and a couple of neds walked up with a bottle of cider each. as they were getting closer i was wondering how easy it would be to hit one of them with the top of my tripod if things got ugly :-D
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Was in a carpark in the woods in caerphilly a couple of weeks ago taking some night shots, not too late, about 8pm.

A car drove into the carpark and sat there for a few minutes with the engine running. The car then parked up, and switched the engine off. Driver gets out and starts to walk towards me. I jump down from the grass bank i was on and walk towards him and say (the common welsh greeting) 'alright'. He stops, says "do you have the time", i reply, 'yeah about 815', and he says 'cheers' and walks back to his car. I had a WTF expression on my face for a little while....
 
I love to chat to fellow togs, but it can go many ways.
Try talking to fellow togs when you haven't got your camera with you, most are not interested.

See a couple struggling to get a photo of themselves and offer to take the shot for them, only to be told how to take the shot etc, even though I've got £1000's of gear hanging around my neck and may actually know what I'm doing.

Getting people coming up to me to talk about photography because I have a "big" camera, which I don't mind, only to pull out their camera and tell me how good theirs it because it has a 50x digital zoom, 20mp and a built in flash. And that cameras like mine are so old fashioned now.
I smile.
All happened Within the space of a week.

All in all, most are friendly and love a chat.
After all "it's good to talk"

Dean.
 
Happened a few times in my short career, as long as they're genuinely interested I'm game for a short chat.

And this is coming from someone with quite severe social anxiety, I guess being backed into a corner helps!
 
lol round here if in town then heck no they cover their kids run and generally look at you like you landed from mars .. even when you are clearly waiting for them to move out of the shot or away ... in the Lakes then yes some will come ask usually if i see coupls up here doing the now one of me then me shot to get them both in .. i ask if they would rather i take one of them both together which then turns into a chat ... i do not mind it at all tbh.. also have ended up showing folks how to do certain things if they not sure which is nice considering i am no pro
 
Personally I tend to find it a bit irritating. Now I'm a friendly enough sort of bloke, but it seems that certain walks of life leave you open to questioning. Nobody asks a window cleaner what he's doing, or a painter etc, but put my camera on a tripod and people come out of the woods to ask what I'm doing.
Now fair enough if I'm just out snapping the local lighthouse or something but if I'm working, well time is money, and besides it's none of their business anyway.
How many of these people would walk up to any other total stranger minding his/her own business and ask "what are you doing?" Try that in some neighbourhoods and you'll get a two word answer.
 
Not so much with the dslr but always and often with the RB67 or C33 TLR :)
Usually the previous generation, remembering when they had one or their wedding was taken with one. This I don't mind. The conversations are polite, quite short and non-intrusive.
With the dslr, it's chav/esses. 'Ow, ere! Tak one of me!' I'd oblique just to get rid but I can't keep one eye on the viewfinder and the other on their mate/brother/wife/mother (can be the same person) who's hovering near my bag lol.
 
I always stop and talk to anyone who's interested. It does no harm and led me to an experience where I was of great help to an old couple who were about to get ripped off by someone. I'll share the experience in a while when all the investigation is over, which is likely to be soon.
 
I find people chat, which isn't a problem, but some older chaps seem to want to tell me what I'm doing wrong, best one was a chap who stopped me to tell me I was carrying the camera all wrong.

Weirdest one was in our town though. I'd not got my camera with me, but saw a man with really old glass plate full frame gear & he was dressed head to toe in tweed, complete with plus fours & a cape. I thought I'd ask if he was shooting something as a project, but he just glared at me & didn't speak. I did wonder at his get up if he didn't want attention.
 
I only do wildlife these days and avoiding people is just as hard as finding the wildlife ;)
 
I guess its like all walks of life, if you do something slightly out of the norm you will always attract a 'friend' from somewhere.

Not photography I know, but I was acosted outside the local kebab shop by a guy begging for change, he was so knowledgeable and was totally into my MkI Fiesta XR2 that I gave him a quid for the pleasure of his company....
 
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