Snapping

One of my hobbies is photography. What I like about it is that it gives me an end product to spending a day in the country. The other week I went to the London Harness Horse Parade. I have a great fondness for horses especially the humbler beasts of burden rather than the pampered race horses.

A rather posh horse carriage stopped and when we 'snappers' started photographing a man on the top of the carriage started berating one of our number in a rather self important, pompous manner. His gist was that he only wanted bona fide photographers snapping his rig so that it would be seen in a quality newspaper or magazine. If he was trying to be humorous he certainly did not pull it off. He seemed to be trying to humiliate the photographer.

I saw red and was all for pulling this man off the carriage and giving him a humbling experience at the end of my boot. Later I talked to the photographer that had been targeted and reminded him of the incident. He told me his name and it being double barreled I joked that he was probably posher than the carriage driver. He was in fact an old Harrovian. That evening I went to his website and I could see that he was a photographer of great talent having travelled the world capturing horses on film. His name is Rupert Sagar Musgrave. I had seen one of his photos in a quality daily paper. I personally would have created a scene but he showed composure and with this and his talent rose above the situation. I do not know the carriage driver’s name. I did not even keep the pictures of his carriage.

A friend knowing my rather mercurial nature lent me a book by Daniel O’Leary.

Even if it is only for a split second, you will discover that there is an instant when you have the chance to choose- between the immediate, negative, thoughtless reaction or the aware response that changes the personal, hurtful charge into a mutually life giving moment. This is the only loving and wise thing to do. from Travelling Light

My reading that night was.

Be friendly with everyone. don’t be proud and feel that you are cleverer than others, make friends with ordinary people. Romans 12.16