« mr whippy queue | Main | Jackson Thomas Rose »
January 30, 2005
friday lunch
friday lunch
Originally uploaded by yankinoz.
A well known multi-national corporation has a rather large campus across the street from where I work. I (and a large number of others) rather routinely cut through this campus to get to the only decent restaurants in the area for lunch. It is so common a short cut most of us think of it as a public park rather than private property.
Friday morning I noticed someone on flickr is getting great colour saturation with a Canon 10D and is underexposing 1/3-2/3 of a stop. So I grabbed my camera on the way to work Friday morning and was auto bracketing right and left on the train ride in.
At lunch, while crossing the multi-national's park, I took 12 photographs of a tree (bracketing exposure and colour saturation settings.) I then enjoyed a lovely beef and peapod stir fry at the local noodle shop. As I returned from lunch (back on the private property) I hear; "Excuse me! Excuse me!" and here comes someone who saw me "taking pictures." She could not wait to tell me that this is private property and that she had 'reported' me and wanted to know my name and where I worked.
My first thought was who exactly did she report me to? But I somehow managed to realize that that would be a very confrontational question so I told her I worked across the street and my name (showing her my work ID that was clipped to my belt.) I told her I was taking photographs of the tree on the other side of the main building and offered to show them to her and even delete them. She backed right off; reminded me it was private property and said I need to get permission if I want to take pictures in the future.
Lessons for the day:
- SLRs draw more attention than compacts
- A reminder that it is not legal to trespass
- Big multi-nationals are nervous about corporate espionage
- Polite honesty worked well in defusing the situation
- The Chinese restaurant is better than McDonald's
I spent a good part of the afternoon waiting for the police to turn up at my office. So far, no word from the authorities, but if that changes, I'll be sure to let you all know!
--------
Posted by yankinoz at January 30, 2005 10:37 PM
