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Peace and quiet

:: Thursday, November 30th, 2006 @ 11:29:00 am

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I’m starting to not like getting recognized when I travel because I get asked questions non-stop about photography and diving.

“What camera do you use?”

“Where is your favorite spot?”

“How did you get started in photography?”

The ones with advice or an unlimited number of boring dive stories are the worst.

It doesn’t happen that often, and I already dislike it!

| Cabo San Lucas, Mexico | link | trackback | Nov 30, 2006 11:29:00
  • danspeters

    There aren’t many photo groupies are there? Though you probably wouldn’t like that either ;-)

  • http://giles.shaxted.co.uk Giles Shaxted

    eric .. you have two choices … you can either carry on how you are being a nice person .. or have un with it .. btw there are two types of fun:

    1) The asshole sarcastic rude way .. you know treat them like imbociles for even asking ..

    or

    2) come up with some subtle answers to give back that will amuse you and they wont catch on you are being rude.

    Number one runs the risk of you becoming one of those photographers you like to talk about behind their backs and no one likes .. although i’d think you are ok still Number two .. hell there are no risks if you do it right .. things like .. how did you get started in underwater photography … I was diving off the coast of belize on a 1.5 hour 220ft shore dive. On my way back into shore I saw an object on the seabed. I had no idea what it was. I was already heading up to decompress as my computer had me way in my limits. I took the risk and dived deep again to go see what it was. It turned out to be a Canon blah blah in a blah blah housing. Well my decompression stops took about 45 minutes on the way back up so i started playing with it .. and bam .. there i was taking underwater photographs …

    oh you could have so much fun with that !

  • enjelani

    is this partly due to that cameo on the Tonight Show? :)

    i wish there were a way of saying, in casual conversation: “i don’t want to ask you some annoying question you’ve gotten a thousand times, but i am curious about what you do, so…what’s something you wouldn’t mind talking about?”

    irritating as the questions ritual is, you gotta admit – it’s pretty cool that you’re getting recognized. ;) beats toiling away in obscurity year after year…

  • http://www.davidpatchen.com davepatchen

    “I’d love to chat, but since you’re not a really cute 20-something girl, I just don’t have time right now…”

    Actually, I think you should be more thoughtful about the situation and be flattered that you’re recognized. If you were completely devoid of talent you wouldn’t be worth recognizing and you could enjoy your solitude. Nevertheless, you are talented and your talent is public so you’ll ‘suffer’ the admiration and interest of the public. Try to be flattered by the attention–most people don’t have anything that makes them notable. From the perspective of your groupies, this is the first time they’re meeting you so while I’m sure they know you’ve probably answered these questions before, they don’t know the answers and they’re not trying to annoy you–they’re just interested.

    You can always refer them to an FAQ at echeng.com if you really don’t want to talk…then you’d have to create echeng.com/answerstoallyourquestions

  • norm

    Eric, I don’t know if you remember Scot much from high school, but he wanted to get a t-shirt made with his height, shoe size and some snarky comment about how the weather was up there to answer the first three questions before they asked them. Maybe you can have an echeng faq shirt and wear it when you travel! And if you make a good one, you can probably sell some on your site, too.

  • http://echeng.com echeng

    Good ideas, guys!

    There was an uber fan on this trip (I’m in mexico) who nearly drove me crazy. Guys like this can’t leave you alone even when you’re eating or reading or working.

    Norb Wu was on this trip as well, and it was worse for him because this guy had a collection of all of Norb’s books and docos.

    I end up hiding in my cabin.
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