I've often wondered how many tourist pictures I'm in. See, I have this rule--if someone is taking a picture, and this picture taking involves blocking a sidewalk or other passage way, I give the photographer 5 seconds to take the shot. If 5 seconds elapse, I figure the photographer's rudeness at blocking my way outweighs my rudeness at getting in the shot. The closer we get to the summer tourist season, the more often I have to invoke my 5-second rule.

It comes along with working in the public eye. After college I worked at an outdoor school for a couple of years. Every week we got a new crop of kids who completely fell in love with the staff and the experience and snapped our pictures nonstop. We used to joke about how many kids' photo albums and bulletin boards our pictures were on - thousands of them, literally. This was pre-internets though.

When I worked at Major Museum doing demonstrations and education, our pictures were taken all the time by both tourists and the museum's marketing team. I still often open up a magazine and can make out images of myself and/or co-workers in some of the ads for the place. There are a lot of YouTube videos of friends who still work there doing their things, but I mostly escaped that fate (I left in 2004, before digital video was quite as cheap and easy). Still, it's pretty fun to Google the place up and see people I know doing familiar things.

One of my staff complained yesterday that someone videod her for half an hour doing some hearth cooking. Oh, well. We're in the public eye here - we do this to educate people. She was worried about "What are they going to do with the video later?" Well, if they use it inappropriately, we'll take action. If they just post it, though? Hey, publicity for us. Part of the job!

By the way, jonmc, that's a nice picture of you. Nice lighting.

Yeah, the photgraphy in that whole set is excellent. This pic cracks me up.

That's a very cool picture, jonmc. You're famous! (Not that you weren't already.)

I worked in Salem, MA dressed up in Puritan wear, and I often wondered how many tourist video/pictures I was in.

Great pic! Totally should be a New Yorker cover.