On Thursday, I was awakened by a noise so loud I immediately slid out of bed to investigate. As soon as I parted the blinds, I knew whatever had happened was just across the street, a fact confirmed by the subsequent arrival of members of the fire and police departments. Intrigued, I grabbed my camera and went to see what the fuss was about.

As I strolled closer, it soon became clear that a car had hit one of the shops. The damage was extensive, mangling the front door and knocking over bricks. I raised my camera to my eye to get a shot (mostly to assist in telling my brother the story later.) Just then, a uniformed store employee spotted my camera and jumped in front of me, waving his arms and shouting “No pictures!” I cocked my head at him and said “Oh? And why is that?” Then I stepped around him to take a few frames, including this one (the employee is not shown):

What I find most interesting about this event is not the photo and not even the crash, but that man’s instinct. Why did he think it was necessary to try to stop a member of the public from taking photographs? Why did he think he had the right to do so? Was it just an overzealous response by an amped-up hourly worker eager to do something? Did he think I was media? What was he afraid of?

I have to say, my view is that when it comes to crime, the more eyes the better.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 7th, 2006 at 3:44 am and is filed under WtF.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.