No, I am not in the FBI
This is a new one.
Today I was assigned to cover a protest to mark the fifth anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq.
The protesters were on one side of the street. I was on the other side of the street, because I didn’t want to stand in rush hour traffic to get their pictures. I used my Canon EF 200 mm 1.8 L lens, which is a fairly large lens, and shot photos from the other side of the street. People started covering their faces and looking at me with disdain.
Later, when I introduced myself to get names for the captions, some of the protesters were releived. “We thought you were in the FBI,” a couple of them said.
In hindsight, maybe I should have introduced myself first before I took the pictures. I usually don’t try to do that, because afterwards it takes a few minutes for people to get back to acting naturally, and I’d rather photograph people that are acting naturally. But in some ways, photographing people who are afraid of your intentions has about the same effectiveness as photographing people who are mugging for the camera.