The Island King was scheduled for a photo shoot on Saturday and I went along for the ride.
We got to the house and as he was shooting I was wandering around, trying to stay out of his way and noticed an odd little device on a window sill.
I walked over, picked it up and realized it was some sort of camera. And it had infra-red written on it so I began to wonder if it was a deer camera.
Which made me curious because I want one to put out near my Pet Cemetery geocache to catch some of the reactions.
I looked at it for a minute and then called the Island King over to look at it. He didn't think it was a deer camera but he did say that the blinking green and red lights made him think it was a security camera that seemed to be transmitting.
Which is when he turned the camera to the side to look for a brand and one of the cords came unplugged.
Ooops.
He quickly plugged it back in, stuck his tongue out at it and then put it back and went back to work.
Less than 10 minutes later a relatively angry looking man came flying through the front door and then just stood there staring at us.
The Island King introduced himself and said I'm a photographer here to photograph the house.
The man said "I'm the homeowner"
No name, just "I'm the homeowner"
I walked up, stuck my hand out (which seemed to irritate him because I don't think he wanted to shake my hand or acknowledge my presence at all) and introduced myself.
He shook my hand but still offered no name.
At this point he's looking at us and we're looking at him and wondering what is going on.
We were hired to do this shoot by the realtor, we were given the keys by the realtor and the realtor knew we were there - so why was the homeowner glaring at us?
He walked over to the camera on the window sill and said "the alarm went off when you unplugged my camera"
Oh. Now we know why he's here.
He then starts babbling about the camera taking constant pictures and in true Island King form, my husband said "Well thank goodness we weren't jumping on the couch or raiding the refrigerator"
He laughed when he said it but the homeowner found no humor in that at all.
This house has a really pretty pool area and it was staged with a ton of candles so earlier the realtor asked if we could stay until sunset and take some good night shots of the pool and house.
We agreed and at this point I felt the need to tell the homeowner that the realtor asked us to stay and do the sunset shots.
He said "I took these with my phone" and showed the Island King some ok photos of the pool area all lit up.
Pretty pictures but not magazine quality pictures - which is where these photos are going.
He seemed irked that we would be staying any longer than necessary but shrugged his shoulders, said "I expected to get here and find my flat screen tv being carried out the door" and walked out of the house.
Was that an insult? If he had indeed been watching the video or pictures he would have seen nothing but professionalism.
So we finish the shoot and know we have about 15 minutes to kill before the lighting is right for the night shots.
We sit down outside at a patio table and are just talking and waiting when the homeowner comes back.
He completely ignored us, made some adjustments to the camera and left.
We're both looking at the camera and realize it's moving,
It rotates around, up and down, and all over, either taking still photos of each location or actual video.
And the way it's set up - now - is to take pictures of the pool deck.
It only scanned the inside of the house before he readjusted it.
I KNOW that was an insult.
What did he think we were going to do? Swim in his pool? Enjoy "his" property?
The Island King and I both laughed because yes it was a nice house but we both would have rather been sitting on our patio at home than here, waiting for the sun to set so we could finish our work and then drive an hour to get home.
This is the first time we've ever had something like this happen before.
Maybe there have been cameras in other homes and we didn't see them but this guy seemed a little over the top in the security department.
We were talking about what had happened on the way home and the inner child in both of us agreed that we wished we'd have jumped on the couch.
We might look like Gypsies in the Palace but we know how to behave when we need to.
