Photos whilst recumbent

[Kim]

While on the topic of recumbents and photos has anyone else here increasingly found themselves being the subject of unwanted photographs?

It’s happened to me four times (to my knowledge at least) in the past couple of weeks.  The first was a car slowing right down beside me while I was riding along one of Newcastle’s busy city centre dual carriageways.  I turned to see what his problem was only to find that I was being photographed, or maybe videoed by the passenger.

A similar thing happened just as I was leaving the small village of Lochgoilhead about a week ago. This time a big black Audi ran alongside me on a road that was barely wide enough for such a manoeuvre just so the passenger could get a couple of photos.

Then just yesterday while out on the bent with the tandem club the same sort of thing happened twice.

It can’t just be me can it? Anyone else regularly find themselves on the end of an unwanted camera?

Normal for riding a recumbent.  I work on the principle that if they're videoing you on their iPhone they've probably seen you.

[woollypigs]

I'm sure people have snapped me while I was riding, which I haven't got anything against. Though if they are driving at the time I am.

[Kim]

What I wonder is where the photos all go?  Presumably they're being uploaded to Twitface or something.  Is there a hashtag for weird bike spotting?

[Joe.B]

That's just what I've been wondering.  There must be a generational aspect to it; I only take photo's of things that I actually want a photo of, but then I'm 42 and grew up back when a roll of film was a photographic necessary.  My daughter on the other hand has an iphone that’s practically busting at the seams with all of the thousands of photos it carries.  They never get transferred to a computer and sensibly filed, just continue to exist on the phone.   

[Kim]

I think I'm on the cusp of the generations in that respect.  Sometimes I'll take a photo because I want to keep a nice picture of something, but I'm just as likely to take one as a form of communication - the "look at this interesting thing I saw" use case.

(There's also a technological aspect.  Digital photography has made photography a practical way to document things where in the film era it simply wasn't.  I might use a camera to record positions or settings of things where historically you'd have made measurements or sketches, or even as a substitute for a magnifier or mirror.)

Some of my photos get filed in a photo gallery.  Some get filed in a filesystem along with documents, code, schematics or whatever for a particular project.  Some get emailed to someone or uploaded to Twitter to illustrate a particular point and are forgotten.  Most are unwanted duplicates or for temporary reference, and kick around until I have a clear-out then get deleted.

I'm old and wise enough not to trust anything important to a single storage device.  Especially one that's easily stolen/dropped.

[Joe.B]

Yes now I think about it I do often use my phone in that way.  Tag strips in large junction boxes that I’d once have noted down often get photographed now. The camera phone is often a good substitute for the inspection mirror where access is tight too.

I had an interesting conversation a few years ago with an archaeologist that I used dive with about the storage problem.  She had been involved in a study investigating the best way to store information alongside high grade radioactive waste. The idea being that our distant descendants should know what was it was all about should they stumble upon it in 5000 years.  A modern high grade papyrus was a very credible option I believe.

[Mr Larrington]

I once found myself being overtaken by a Mercedes, which then stopped to allow an impressively turbanned Sikh to leap out of the back seat and start papping me with his box brownie.  That was in 1982.

[Phil W]

Sadly I managed to drop my cube when unloading from the car after returning from my March 200 Audax.. That would have been alright but it rolled under the wheels of a car parked next to mine. They headed somewhere before I noticed the camera missing and it got squashed a little and no longer works. The micro SD card was ok, so got photos off. So I'm back to stopping and and odd photo with the phone.

[Phil W]

Replacement cube purchased.

Here's my first video footage whilst riding one handed as I hold the camera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMdj_Xg4KX0&feature=youtu.be

[ElyDave]

looked like a section of 10 Mile Bank there?

[Phil W]

looked like a section of 10 Mile Bank there?

Yep, I rode approx. 400km of roads and cycle tracks in the Fens so many many of the banks and Fens covered