2lazy4U wrote:
I think having a camera in front of your head can make you even more stupid. I'm an amateur photographer and love taking photos, but when doing so, some seem to disengage from reality. Sometimes I wonder if they even really see what they're photographing.
to that point...in the late 70's/early 80's we were on a car trip to Yellowstone staying in the cabins at the Old Faithful Lodge. as luck would have it our cabin was in the outside ring directly opposite the geyser. we woke up one morning, parted the shades on the window and were greeted with the following:
mrs. tourist was standing on the boardwalk that surrounds Old Faithful holding a small camera to her eye. mr. tourist was maybe 50' away holding his faithful pooch, a small, white handful of fluff, by a leash and facing mrs. tourist. about 100' away from mrs. tourist and directly behind mr. tourist and fido was mr. bison calmly grazing on the ground.
mrs. tourist while holding the camera to her eye used her free hand to motion mr. tourist to back up which he did. as mr. tourist slowly backed fido, sensing the danger, straight-legged his front legs into the ground, planted his butt on the ground and refused to move. mr. tourist was tugging and pulling on fido's leash while continuing to slowly back up following his wife's direction. fido, wanting none of this lunacy, was putting up a mightly struggle.
my wife and i had a ringside seat to this show and you can probably guess what happened next. almost simultaneously mr. bison raised and shook his head, looked toward mr. tourist and snorted. he then turned and began to trot in the direction of mr. tourist who had apparently crossed the invisible line defining the bison's comfort zone.
fido, with a mighty tug, yanked the leash from the still-not-aware-of-impending-doom mr. tourist and ran off at a right angle. mrs. tourist raised her head and sensing that now was not the time to adjust her f-stops also ran off at a right angle on the boardwalk. this left our hapless hero standing alone like Errol Flynn in the last battle scene of 'They Died With Their Boots On'. as he watched his faithful companions run for their lives mr. tourist must've either sensed the movement or caught the sight of mr. bison closing in on his backside and somehow had the presence of mind to move to the side just as the mr. bison passed him. I tell ya, a professional bullfighter would've been proud of that maneuver. if we had had a score card we would've awarded mr. tourist a 10-10-10. mr. bison continued trotting across the boardwalk and onto the geyser proper to continue his breakfast.
we never did see what happened if or when mr. and mrs. tourist were reunited or if fido ever stopped running. all of this took place in maybe 30-seconds, too little time to find and grab our camera although I did get a later photo of the bison on the geyser proper.
true story.
