Nearly hit by bottle while shooting...!?!

[Keith Pitman]

Friends and I had a couple of guys point guns at us when we driving out of a "hollar" in West Virginia after spending the night in an old house we had access to. No itchy trigger fingers, but a bit threatening. We went back there a few times. I guess you're bolder when you're young.

[dslater]

So I was shooting a bit today in Ogden, UT while I'm on my spring break from school. I'm in a neighborhood, neither upscale nor ghetto. Normal neighborhood. I was shooting a panorama of an out of business gas-station-turned-pizzaria when I heard someone yell something. I got out of the darkcloth just in time to see some asshole in a big truck drive by and the passenger throw two glass beer bottles at me. Neither hit me somehow but one broke across a locking ring on my tripod. Unfortunately I didn't get his plate since it was a paper temp plate and the window was too glary to read through.

Any of you guys had stuff like this happen? I fail to see what's so offensive about photography. Perhaps he is a staunch digital shooter

Chris,
back when I was in college at Boston University, I was once walking home from a bar when someone hit me in the chest with a full beer can. The car it came from was going about 50MPH - left a hell ofa bruise and sure did hurt. I'm not sure your attack had anything to do with photography. You were probably just a convenient target.

[Sylvester Graham]

If anyones read Susan Sontag's book on photography, she suggests the camera is just a modern replacement for a gun. Not in the U.S. it ain't.

[Turner Reich]

First the US sends troops to war without the proper armor and now photographers are going out without proper armor. I set up a dummy camera with the dummy under a dark cloth, they usually hit the dummy instead of me.

I guess in your case there is no solution. You can bring people but how practical is that? You can bring a gun or pepper spray but how can you shoot pepper spray at people in a moving car? You could try to shoot at the people in the car but what's that going to do. So what if you kill a car full of fools. They will probably send you to the electric chair.

The conclusion is to get killed in the process of photographing. Or you can do what the Israels do and track them down and eliminate them one by one.

There is not a dam thing you can do to get justice is there?

[Cliff Baldwin]

Find out whee they live and tell their moms.

[Ben R]

Someone once suggested wearing high visibility yellow glow jackets, the kind worn by workers. The idea is that people just think you are a surveyor or something and don't hassle you for being in the middle of the road, etc.

Could be worth a try...

[alanps]

I was working on a survey of a North London borough years ago - and was setting up camera behind a row of shops - suddenly a big guys jumps out of a car and chases me off - seems he thought I was photographing his drug dealing!

[C. D. Keth]

Someone once suggested wearing high visibility yellow glow jackets, the kind worn by workers. The idea is that people just think you are a surveyor or something and don't hassle you for being in the middle of the road, etc.

Could be worth a try...

Not a bad idea. Though it could backfire and just make me easier to aim at

[Marko]

Apparently, a photographer can be seriously harmed, even killed, while doing nothing more than taking photos on the public beach in broad daylight, no guns or other arms involved. All it takes is being noticed by a sufficiently psychopathic individual.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/ar...705040371.html

[RDKirk]

A bear spray might be as efficient and nobody has ever gone to jail for using it.

You will in DC.