by Border Reiver » Sat Feb 18, 2012 3:33 pm
My wife and I had an hour or so to spare, so we set off to walk the 1.5 miles to a local waterfall. We thoroughly enjoyed the walk through a wooded ravine and were almost within sight of the fall when I spotted a family group of Mum, Dad and 5 young kids doing a bit of a photo shoot. Dad had seen us approaching but had positioned himself in the centre of the 4ft wide path and was videoing his family returning from the waterfall and taking photos also. I waited on the path about 10m behind him while my wife retreated a bit further and sat on a rock. After about 5 mins, the Dad turned around, looked at me, stepped aside, waved me past and handed his camcorder to one of the children. I thanked him and went a few yards past, then turned and beckoned my wife to join me (as it was a bit steep and she needs a helping hand sometimes). As I stood watching her, the Dad looked at me and said “ Well, which way are you going, back or forward?” So I said we were going to the falls, at which he seemed to lose all sense of reason and launched a verbal attack on me, saying that I was obviously the bloody-minded type of awkward b*****d who made a point of standing in the way when people were taking photos and that I had ruined his photos. I apologised and said that I honestly thought as he had waved me past, he would have been finished and that it was important that I waited for my wife to catch up. In the next 2 or 3 minutes, he called me all the unpleasant things he could get away with saying in front of my wife, his wife and his children, and despite me offering more apologies, he was still calling after me as we walked on.
I’ve had many folk walk in front of me while taking pics, but as these things are digital, you just take another pic or video and delete the spoiled one. It’s no big deal.
They seemed such a normal looking family, so I don’t know why this man suddenly flipped the way he did.
Has anyone else on here suffered from camera rage like that or had another walker have a go at them in that manner?