Shot's Fired, Cornfield and Barnyard...officers respond!

There are dangers inherent in shooting photography. I've been in more than a few situations that I thought might have a chance of ending badly for me. Nothing really life threatening, (don't freak out Mom) but I have been in parts of town where I have encountered bad elements standing between me and the safety of my car and that's never really fun. Mind you, I never go into these parts of town with my full rig either. I have an old, worn out camera bag just for those times. I mean, there's no use in screaming out...lot's of expensive camera gear hear, please come rob me. Now, one would think that out in the country, taking pictures of a barn, one wouldn't need to worry too much about getting mugged or shot. That's what I thought at least.

Just the other day, I was over in Puyallup taking pictures of my favorite barn. The morning was just beautiful, the sun was on the rise, the birds were singing and I was positioned in my usual spot and had just started to get good light . All the sudden, I heard the sound of ducks coming up from behind. I turned to look and sure enough, there was a whole flock of ducks flying in a perfect V formation coming up over my head. I quickly got myself into position to catch them as they came over the barn. I remember thinking to myself, what a great shot this will be. Then all of the sudden, BOOM! a shot rang out from the cornfield ahead of me, to my right. Caught totally off gaurd, I took my eye away from the viewfinder just in time to see two of the ducks falling lifelessly to the ground. It was surreal, I couldn't believe it. Right there in the middle of this cornfield, no more than 50 yards from my position, sat two hunters just waiting to spring into action.

I immediately thought to myself, maybe I should go. But the sun was just right and the colors were just perfect and BOOM!...another shot and another duck falls out of the sky. The delima was killing me. Stay and get the shot or stay and get shot. Just about that time, I heard bird shot falling on the the metal roof of the barn. Wow, that's curious. BOOM, another shot. What finally made my decision to go was the bird shot falling just within feet of where I was standing. It sorta sounded like rain. I didn't even walk, I ran like Forrest Gump all the way back to the car.

Note to self...while duck hunting season is in...stay in the city, it's safer.

This was one of the shots I got before the gunfire started. The hunters were in the cornfield just to the right at the base of the Mountain.