008 The Dangers of Flash Photography

Cameras are really dangerous objects, you know. It's not that people misuse them to catch other people doing something dishonest, or part of jokes regarding bak chor mee stall man and ter kwa (pig liver) or just as a source of entertainment by putting videos of, well, things that are done within the walls of one's own bedroom on the net. (note: I condone only the latter and nude squats too, just for your info).

I don't hate cameras or any other digital recording devices, in fact, i must thank cameras for its capabilities of recording the more memorable events in life that disappears in computers that crash and missing thumb drives. And also for all those exciting TV advertisement that feature tennis players that whack balls onto walls to spell her name. It's just interesting, not hilarious, so yeah, i'm not exactly a camera fan.

So anyway, I just read that photography provokes animals. I mean, the Singapore Night Safari is becoming a dangerous place because illiterate tourists do not know how to read signs that reads no flash photography allowed. Either this or they are placed in an obscure corner of the trail that no one cares to look while the authorities can still maintain that the visitors are informed but simply too ignorant to read or remember, but just take note that reading preceeds remembering or reminding, if you get what i mean.

Crikey! I just remembered that Steve Irwin was killed while filming a stingray, with a camera, of course. Not that it has a flash, but it wasn't dark anyway. Once we get comfortable with the fact that how he died was just an accident, i am sure that those people who were or will be injured by charging rhinos due to flash photography in the night safari will all just be an accident until a zoo staff gets hurt due to their fault, which happened yesterday, so remember, people, flash photography is fine, until someone (most of the time, someone else) gets hurt.

Oh, and flash photoghaphy is good when you want to sabotage someone while he is speaking in public, because it is supposed to be distracting. Seriously, but you will get quite a mouthful later, if the speaker isn't too dazed, but i won't gurantee that both parties will make it out physically intact. The speaker might fall of the stage after the flash, and you... you know how.

That's a wrap for now and the haze isn't making photography at safaris any more justified...