Please don't shoot!

I got this image during the annual Seaside Fourth of July parade. I had made the annual 1.6 mile trek since 1998. For most of those years, I covered the event for the weekly newspaper I supported but I left the paper in 2008 as they were making cuts due to the housing recession.

This image is from the 2011 parade. I usually made the trek with a pair of SLRs, one with an telephoto zoom and the other with wide angle zoom. This particular time I decided for something a little different. 

When my dad passed in 1997, his seldom used Yashica Electro35 GS fixed lens rangefinder found its way to me. I decided to shoot the parade with only that camera and Kodak Tri-X b&w film. Needless to say it was an unusual setup for shooting the parade.

I was about halfway down the parade route when I saw this float coming up. As I waited for it to pass, I brought up the camera and the little lad pointed his water pistol at me. I was just hoping he would not fire as the camera was not exactly water resistant.

Fortunately, I was spared his onslaught but came away with this image of the group on the trailer. I love all the bubbles that ended up in the image!

So the morale of the story is with the right mind set, you can get great images with just about any device you want.