Tuesday Tip: Ask If You Can

Just a little PSA for today's Tuesday Tip... but first, a little background:

The Missus and I were on vacation last month and, as sometimes happens while on vacation, I took some pictures of some local railroad stuff. I know - shocker, right?

Well, as we were literally on our way out and back home, I swung by a particular site to get some detail photos for a friend. He models the area but lives far too far away to get the photos himself. I was literally in the neighborhood so wanted to help out so I hopped out of the car with my iPhone, took a bunch of photos, got back in the car and drove home.

That was almost a month ago. Yesterday I (actually, the Missus since it was her car) got a phone call from a detective asking what we were doing that day. Apparently, somebody saw something and said something and the local detective was following up. He'd already found out a bunch about us, well, me, since I leave quite a digital footprint with this blog, my website, and youtube. Fortunately, what all he found out corroborated my explanation that I was just taking photos for model railroading purposes.

My usual practice is to check with somebody first before taking photos, to avoid any confusion or suspicion. And the real irony here is that I actually know the owner of the place where I was taking photos. But I was in a hurry and it was only a few photos. And it's a big place, so apparently one of the employees - who of course doesn't know me from Adam - was concerned.

So, if at all possible, when you're taking photos see if there's somebody in the area you can tell: a property owner, or somebody nearby that might otherwise be suspicious. In this day and age, I guess we all have to be a little extra careful.

And that's your PSA for today.