Anyone who claims that being a spy photographer for the automotive industry is a walk in the park, clearly hasn’t a clue what this profession entails.
On the other hand, we also understand that being followed / stalked by people with cameras while you're trying to do your job as an engineer can be frustrating and time-consuming. Nevertheless, if you're not driving on a private track but on public roads, you just have to learn to live with it.
Now, it's one thing for an engineer to display his or her anger with sign language, as we've seen it happen many times in the past, and a completely different story when you get physically aggressive.
One such episode occurred in the Rocky Mountains when an angry Swedish Volvo engineer, who was testing a camouflaged V40 Cross Country, attacked KGP photographer Brian Williams breaking his camera lens.
In all fairness, we only get to hear one side of the story from Brian Williams, who posted the video on YouTube, so we don't know if something happened before (not that the Swedish carmaker's engineer actions are justified).
Here's what Williams said about the incident, according to a report from Jalopnik:
"I was filming the Volvo XC40 testing in the Rockies when the engineer lost it. He decided that I had filmed enough and wanted to break my camcorder. My wife was in the car so it made things a little interesting. After the video ends he approached my wife at which point I said "If you go near her I'll knock you out" and at that point he came to his senses.""I told him that you can't just attack people for videoing in public and told him that I knew he was here on a visa. He started apologizing and explained that he gets chewed out every time the car gets video'd/photographed, but his bosses don't understand that you can't hide a car that looks like a zebra."
"I told him I wouldn't show the video to local police, and I never saw him again. I ended up having a bruise on my arm for about two weeks."
5 Comments:
sue him and the company...you can get a good load of money...like serious amounts
Wahh ... I don't feel for the photographer and by putting "attacked" we're supposed to feel sympathy somehow for his stalking?
his job is to test drive the car, not be worried about someone tailing him and snapping away, the photographer's job is to keep a distance, take photos and share it to the web, just like every other spy shot.
if he is driving a car that is covered in camo, i assume that volvo already know people is going to snap photos of the car, the only reason for the camo is so that we cant see whats underneath,
even if the photographer stalked him everywhere, i dont see the point of getting physical, if he is already driving on public roads, thats the photographer's right to snap as much as he wants, albeit dont stalk the test driver home
I would just peel off the camo from the car.
The guy is driving a test car in public, on a public road. He has no right to privacy At. All.
A nice 5 or 6 figure settlement from Volvo would probably make things better.
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