About ten years ago I was at the Everglades National Park taking a few shots of a Blue Heron on the other side of the lake near to the cafe, but I wasn't close enough so decided to follow a track around the right hand side of the lake, only to find myself on the opposite bank and about 30 feet away from a really big alligator that was about three times bigger than me. So what did I do, run away screaming? No of course not, I put the camera up to me eye and started shooting it of course and carried on shooting it as I watched it open its eyes and start to turn its big gnarly head towards me. A voice then whispered in my ear from a friendly park ranger with really long hair, you do realise he can run a whole lot faster than you don't you and he can kill you with just one bite?
Big scary animals don't look anything like as fearsome when you are looking at them through a viewfinder, was the big lesson I learned that day.
I also learned a second lesson some years later when shooting a scene in Canada and a black bear and her cubs started coming towards me, that when you live in a country such as the UK like I do, where the most fearsome thing you will probably encounter in the wild is a nettle bush, that without realising it you get used to that lack of risk mindset and yet again without realising it, you take that exact same mind set on holiday with you. So yes I agree tourists often appear to do things that are totally stupid to a knowledgeable local, but for them and for me that day in the everglades, because we never encounter danger like this at home, we don't have the same automatic alarm bells ringing based on experience that you guys have - although I certainly do now and it sends a shudder down my spine everytime I think about just how close I had got to a really, really big alligator
Dave
