What was he doing?
By Fleur
@Fleura (29129)
United Kingdom
May 5, 2021 4:38pm CST
Around 6 pm today I happened to notice something outside our window, and when I looked closer I saw a man photographing a bicycle lying in the road just outside our neighbour’s house.
The man, who was youngish with a beard and a large bag that seemed to contain photographic equipment, was not anyone I recognised as being from any of the houses round about.
He was using an SLR camera, and he photographed the bike lying in the wet road, then returned to it, placed it in a slightly different position, backed off and photographed it again.
When he saw me looking out of our window he waved. He then spent a few minutes tucked up against our neighbour’s hedge fiddling with his camera, presumably changing a lens or something while trying to keep it protected from the rain.
Then he picked up his bike, mounted it and rode off.
What could he have been doing?
I have two ideas so far:
1) He was faking an accident and he was planning to sue our neighbours for some fictitious injury caused by falling off his bike outside their house in the rain,
2) He was a photographer who needed a photo of a bike lying in the road, maybe to illustrate an article about accidents (or just a stock photo) and he didn’t want to try to create one in the actual road because of the traffic (although it would have been more realistic in a ‘proper’ road with white lines and everything, compared to what is basically just someone’s house driveway).
Anyone got any other suggestions?
All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2021.
10 people like this
10 responses
@rsa101 (37952)
• Philippines
6 May 21
I would like to believe that #2 could be the most acceptable one and he just found out that whatever he is doing is for some kind of project or something. I think a lot of photographers do weird things just to get the point of what they are doing through photography.
2 people like this
@BelleStarr (61047)
• United States
5 May 21
That is very odd and I don't really have a good explanation.
2 people like this
@LadyDuck (458008)
• Switzerland
13 May 21
@Fleura May be because he needed a quiet place without too many cars circulating. Looking back at your photo I am noticing that he is not a professional photographer. Someone needing the "perfect photo" for a magazine always uses a tripod. May be he is only a young blogger who wanted to illustrated a fabricated story of an accident he had and in reality never happened.
1 person likes this
@Tampa_girl7 (48929)
• United States
5 May 21
Hopefully he’s not going to sue your neighbors.
2 people like this
@HomewardBound (551)
•
5 May 21
I can’t think of any other scenario that makes any sense at all.
2 people like this
@kaylachan (57636)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
5 May 21
The first seems to be more likely. He also didn't see you as a threat, either. Either that or he got into an accident and was photographing it. Without being able to ask the possiblities are endless. But, staging an accident seems the most likely.
1 person likes this
@DaddyEvil (137145)
• United States
6 May 21
Okay, if he's trying to stage an accident, he'd do it where the houses look prosperous, which that one does. But, how does he explain having a bag full of photographic equipment while on a bike ride in the rain? And it didn't get damaged in the wreck?
If he was taking a photo for a stock image, why that driveway? Is that drive different from the other drives in some way?
Why would he act unconcerned with you seeing him, which he wasn't worried about it or he wouldn't have waved or stuck around fiddling with his equipment. If he was hurt in a wreck, he would have asked you to call the police or ambulance, assuming he broke his cell phone in the accident. (That's two delicate instruments that survived a possible wreck.)
Hmm... I don't know. Neither scenario fits, as far as I can tell. Interesting. But I don't have another scenario to toss into the debate, either.
1 person likes this
@Fleura (29129)
• United Kingdom
6 May 21
I guess I should have asked really, but by the time I'd got my shoes and come out (door is on the other side of the house and I have to walk through the garden) I was afraid he might have gone - and I would have missed seeing what he was doing in the meantime. And of course it would make me look very nosy.
1 person likes this
@DaddyEvil (137145)
• United States
6 May 21
@Fleura Actually, it would have made you look like a concerned neighbor.
I was trying to fit everything you told us into the two scenarios... He was up to something, but what that was, I have no clue.
He should have asked before he took photos of someone else's property, even if it was just the driveway.
1 person likes this
