Quote Originally Posted by pepeguitarra View Post
I experience the "you must be taking a great photo because you have a large camera" at certain locations in California, when bus loads of Chinese tourists are present. They come around me, behind me, by my side, to capture what I am trying to capture. They even touch my tripod and push, they don't have manners either. Sometimes, I am just metering the light or checking how the Fresnel is working, etc.
This reminds me of a funny as hell story that happened to me. I was walking the two miles back from the Lamar River in Yellowstone with my fly rod/gear, and about 500 yards from the road was a Chinese man lying prone with a very large telephoto on a very large DSLR resting on a pack. The sun was in his eyes, and the glimmer of the river was evident. I needed to walk right past him to get to my car, but decided to loop behind a bit instead of crossing in front of him on the path. Mind you, most people won't go five feet off the road let alone 500 yards. OK, I did wonder, maybe it was an elk, perhaps the wolf packs were out, or a grizzly. I kept looking catching my breath, and then one by one people came quickly from the road to his side, car doors slamming and traffic at a halt. It was a gorgeous evening. I was about 100 feet behind the man and he never saw me come. They all started asking ME "What does he see?" Tripods with cameras, binoculars, telephotos, spotting lenses, they were out so quickly. Never been to Yosemite, but I'm sure it's the same, there were 25 people in five minutes crowded around him "LOOKING..." Finally I hear a guy say, "Hey, what it is- what IS IT you see???? Watcha looking at??!!" In his very best grating NJ Guido accent which took any shine off that beautiful evening. He takes his head from the viewfinder and turns around, "I take picture of rock in river in sun." That crowd evaporated faster than a drop of water on a sizzling fry pan. And I loved every minute of it. Looking at the river there was a glimmer and an island in the sun with tall grass that was dancing and backlight cottonwoods. Good for that man.