For Your Entertainment...

First off, this one time (back around Halloween) my family went to a murder mystery dinner hosted by BYU's drama program. It was a lot of fun, and ironically my family was designated to be from China. (All the guests were dignitaries from various countries). At one point we got to talking about how we should get some pictures like Chinese tourists... You know, where they get pictures of themselves with everyone and everything? For example...

Yup. This was the detective. We figured we had to get one with someone random, right??








There are some days where I feel a little racist or something for taking those pictures. But just a little. Because all I have to do is look at the one of my mom and dad and a surge of giggles washes away all my regret.

Today, however, I had a face-to-face encounter with a camera-loving Asian. In this case, as I have been informed, our friend was visiting from Thailand.

I was shooting a wedding at the Salt Lake Temple when, we'll call him Mr. X, showed up during the family stair pictures. I caught a side conversation of one of the bride's aunts asking him who's family he was with (knowing, I'm sure, that he wasn't with the wedding party), and then asking him why he was taking pictures. All I caught was him telling her he was a visitor. I figured he was just visiting Temple Square and thought all the excitement surrounding the bride was cool. Thus--TAKE A MILLION PICTURES!!

It couldn't hurt, I figured. He wasn't in my way.

But he kept popping up everywhere. Call it karma? Who knows.

And at one point, as I was setting up a shot, he came up and asked me if I would take a picture of him WITH the bride and groom. Huh. Negotiations regarding the operation of his old Nikon didn't go over well (I don't think he could actually understand what I was asking) so I tried to wing it. The camera was entirely manual, including the focus. Unfortunately, the image never looked in focus through the viewfinder for the whole range of the focus ring. So I just snapped one of them and got on with setting up my shot.

And he kept popping up for the remainder of the shoot. Usually in the background, taking pictures of me taking pictures of them.

Huh. I don't really feel guilty at all anymore.

Although, to be comletely fair, he didn't make the peace signs...