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Photo 366 (161) "The Torch."

196 (1186)

It had to be done, I suppose. Despite my almost total lack of enthusiasm, Chloe, my ten-year-old daughter and I took up station beside the route of the parade and were rewarded after a wait of only about fifteen minutes with an opportunity of about thirty seconds in which to get a shot.
Obviously, lots of people were armed with cameras and several were standing alongside me. Sadly, I was also standing next to the 'Village Idiot,' a spiky haired cretin with a 'Costa-Packet' take-away coffee in one hand and a mobile phone in the other.
He'd stepped into the road and consequently into everyone else's field of view several times as the support vehicles crawled past but just as Chloe said "there it is. I can see the flame!", he lunged forward and morphed into a cross between a Preying Mantis and a contortionist. If you've ever seen a moron trying to take a photograph with a mobile using only one hand, you'll have some idea.
To my right, where the people with the proper cameras were attempting to get their shots, whilst politely not getting in each others' way, there came a collective, discernible groan.
So, reaching across Chloe, who was standing in front of me, I said in my best PC English, "Excuse me young man, I hope you don't mind my pointing this out but you're preventing these jolly nice chaps back here with their cameras from getting a decent shot. Would you mind awfully, just stepping back slightly . . . ?"
OK, that wasn't exactly what I said, in fact, it's nothing like what I said but he did move.
Immediately.
Right away.
Right up the road, in fact.
The relief from the others was palpable. Suddenly we all had our tiny envelope back again and although neither of the two shots that I got are really much good, at least I've got them.
And so have all of the others who's morning was so nearly spoiled by the thoughtlessness of just one imbecilic specimen; who's shot, to which he was as entitled as the rest of us, had he behaved like one of the rest of us, would probably have ended up as pride of place on his 'Twitface' account. An appropriately forgettable home for an appropriately forgettable shot.
I got some shots of the rest of the parade, such as it was and some quite good ones of Policemen on motorbikes and in cars so in the end, it was quite an enjoyable morning.
Especially when I ruined it for the Village Idiot.

Comments

JJGEE

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9 Jul 2012 - 3:04 PM

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Thanks for the tip-off, best I do not set up my tripod up in the middle of the High Street when it comes my way on the 17th

Last Modified By JJGEE at 9 Jul 2012 - 3:04 PM

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9 Jul 2012 - 8:19 PM

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Jestertheclown

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9 Jul 2012 - 8:19 PM

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The problem with using a tripod Jeff, certainly here anyway, would have been an inability to know where to position it and to avoid the crowds. Where we were standing was, surprisingly, sparsely populated and a tripod, light enough to pick up and run with, whilst complete with camera might just have worked. A monopod certainly would.
The only real gievance with getting my shots was a lack of time. I'd taken practice shots of roughly where I thought the torch might be using a very obliging Policeman but none of us were prepared for just how little time there actually was.
I was faced with either machine gunning a couple, perhaps three bursts and hoping one shot worked, or taking one shot, checking it, possibly making a very quick adjustment and then taking as many more as possible.
I went for the latter, thinking that if I'd got it wrong in the first burst, then all of the others would be rubbish too, so I went for the relatively safe second option and got just two, without making any adjustments.
I was using 'Aperture' as always but I did wonder afterwards, if perhaps it was one of those rare occasions when 'Auto' might have been the ticket.
If I'd had two cameras and the time, I'd like to have tried it.
A better alternative; and there is a shot taken this way somewhere on here, would be to use a longer lens and to shoot downwards from an upper floor window. That's always assuming that you could locate a window in the right place that you could use, of course.
Bizarrely, in the High Street, around the corner from the relative peace where we were, it was manic. People were crammed in, several deep between the shops and the road and I reckon anyone trying for a decent shot would have been wasting their time.
Let me know how you get in Jeff. Having tried it with, shall we say, moderate success, I'd be interested to hear how you fare.