The meditation flash mob at the British Museum on January 20 was marred by an amateur photographer, who walked into the middle of the sitting crowd, pointed his camera at their serene faces, and flash blasted photo after photo, for nearly twenty straight minutes.
When I questioned the man after the event, it was clear that he had not been invited by the event organisers, nor had he even spoken with the organisers to get permission to shoot. He tried to justify his behaviour by insisting that the meditating Buddhists "wanted publicity, otherwise why would they be meditating in public?"
He claimed to be a "freelance photographer" though he could not name a single media outlet that he had sold images to. And he had no explanation for why a professional photojournalist should need to take dozens and dozens of shots to capture a group of people sitting completely still!
What should have been a Zen event was rendered irritating by the thoughtless, ignorant behaviour of one.
Typical London.
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