*cough*.
I was just thinking about that. Of course I’d never take photos of an accident… except…
I went to Northern Ireland to watch the Giro d’Italia. We watched the TTT. I took my camera and longish lens and was happily snapping away getting lots of photos of teams going past. And then Garmin Sharp crashed right in front of us. Indeed I have a photo where if you look closely at the very edge of the shot you can see a bike wheel at completely the wrong angle – Dan Martin himself has fallen sideways out of the shot but the three riders behind him are heading straight towards the wheel.
They crash and I stand around a bit shocked for a moment. Then I notice everyone taking photos, and people jumping off press bikes and poking their cameras into the action. And I look at the camera round my neck and think “hang on, this is newsworthy stuff”. And really, why would anyone want my photos when there are press photographers on the scene anyway. But on the other hand the press photographers and the live tv kind of indicate that there is no real expectation of any privacy.
In the end I did take some photos. I wanted to capture the sense of panic and activity rather than the grimaces on faces or close ups of torn lycra but I’m still not entirely sure whether I should have or not.