Picture Perfect

Photography is a tough business. It involves the suppression of morals, the booting of inhibitions and a iron-hard will to stand people's opinions. In my case, it involves theft, absolute disregard of privacy and the ability to not care what people say, think and most importantly, what they come chasing you with! I've had my fair share of incidents when I've gone on my trips around the locality. But before all that, I must commit the greatest act of theft and secrecy possible: I must steal the SLR from my father under his very nose and leave the house without said crime ever being detected.
Now, I've always held that a camera offers you the greatest freedom ever. To me, the very act of taking pictures is an ideal of liberty. They preserve moments in time you want to cherish and capture people most candidly. But such freedom comes at great price, as I found out one day. It was a time before I knew my university existed and was on my summer break. I had promised my father that I would take a few pictures of houses so that he could get some new ideas for the house we were building. I knew the best place for this would be the locality nearest to where I lived and so spent every day going over and taking pictures. This was also before I knew the magic of SLRs so I was still using a digital camera. As I was idly walking around, I found a bungalow with some really nice features. Moving closer, I started taking pictures of it when the gate opened and there was a 60 year old man with a shotgun pointed at me. Now, it's very hard to stay calm at gunpoint, but I tried my best. Keeping the gun pointed at me,he began questioning my motives for photographing his habitation. As you all may have heard, I have the curious quality of being truthful under pressure so I told him exactly who I was, where I lived and even showed him my college ID (yes, I was carrying my college ID out of habit). With absolutely no change in expression, he ordered me to leave and stop taking pictures in the locality. Shaken, I staggered back home and didn't leave it for almost a week.
Yet, the next week I was out again, performing the same exercise. I'm anything if not persevering. I decided to steer clear of the previous locality. Moving on, I ventured further away and found another place full of beautiful houses. Yet Fate never lets me settle and a few days later, I made the seeming mistake of taking a picture of a pretty girl with her dog. I assume that it upset her and that caused her to set said dog on me. I looked back to see the Great Dane running towards me at full speed. I panicked and started sprinting, knowing full well I could never outrun the dog. For all those who assume you know Great Danes....they are nothing like Scooby Doo!! The dog was fast closing in on me when I, in my absolute scared state of mind, jumped over the nearest gate into someone's house. Thankfully, it was empty and I was able to hide till the dog moved away. This incident left me with more nightmares though I didn't want to give up.
I finally decided it was too risky to venture so far from home, so I began just walking around within close radius of home. Even then, I seemed to have upset a old woman by taking a picture of her house and the last I saw of her, she was picking up a log of wood and looking menacingly towards me. Since then, I've never gone out of the house until recently, when I took to exploring the walkable world in my spare time. Having an SLR now, I've had much more fun than before and no untoward incidents so far. It amazes me how people react when they see someone with a camera. There's so much joy in their eyes when they ask you to take their picture. And I'm never one to deny them, though random people off the road seem to stare like I am some freak show. But they have their opinions and I have mine. The pictures I take have a certain humour to them, something that a lot of people appreciate, though there are a few detractors. Let's hope I live long enough to achieve a level of some recognition. Although, men with guns, dogs and logs seem to be waiting at every turn..... :P

Çiao!