Saturday, June 27, 2009

Observation



Over the years, I've taken a lot of weird props out for photo shoots. Rarely is it a rural setting. And sometimes it's in a pretty public place, much to my discomfort. But a few comments about the recent photos of the Pumpkin Sentinels got me to thinking. When the joggers who ran in-between the Sentinels didn't even acknowledge their existence with so much as a smile, I started to think back on all the old location shoots. The one constant in each shoot was how people reacted when they saw me and my camera and my monster - they look away and make zero eye contact. I'm not posing this in an egotistical way. I certainly don't mean that I want them to shower me with effusive praise. In fact, I actually prefer being treated like a madman eating flies who people hope will just wander away : )

If someone's in a car driving by, they'll smile and point. If they're not in a car, they try to ignore me.

Just an observation.


The dawn photo shoot of The Bog Man. Houses to the left of him. A road to the right.

11 comments:

Grim said...

That's because they think they can get away faster in their car. They feel safe. Little do they know, cars become extremely unreliable in times of horror.

Rot said...

So true : )

Anonymous said...

its good that people dont come up to you and start asking all kinds of questions and get in the way. also i think that they would be a big distraction just standing and watching while you try to get into the right mind-set and feeling of the photo that you are going to take.
(and when people try to escape in their car it either wont start, dies on them or they crash into a tree.)

Rot said...

Or the thing they're fleeing is suddenly somehow in the back seat!

Johnny said...

Funny, I always thought you were way out in the middle of nowhere with these pics.

That Bog Man pic just shattered the 4th wall! ;-)

Rot said...

HA.
Yeah, I debated posting that photo for that reason. : )

Sometimes I look at the bog man photos and feel like it's acres and acres of swamps. Cropping photos is a tricky and annoying art form to hide things like telephone lines and cars and people walking their dogs.

Sara said...

FYI, I saw one of your bog man photos the other day and it seriously disturbed me. Good job. :)
The one with the really human face? Ugh, gross.

Sara said...

...my bad. Just realized Bog Man was only ONE, not many. I thought you had several. I'm still new to the whole Pumpkinrot Phenomenon. Go easy on me, lol.

Rot said...

: )

JHMDF said...

I thought Bog Man was out in miles of swamp in those photos... you sure fooled me!

I believe that people just don't quite know exactly how to react... they don't really know what you are doing with your camera and prop in the middle of May! hehe. They might be afraid that if they make eye contact or wave, you might want to talk to them about dead creepy dead things... :)

NecroBones said...

Oh man, and here I thought you found some great "away from everything" locations to do the photo shoots. lol!

I've been hating how urban/suburban my area is for that, but there are some locations where I could take some shots with just trees immediately behind the prop too... but it means walking through the neighborhood with it slung over my shoulder, etc. So far I've restrained myself to my driveway. :)