Delete that Photo!

German Woman commands me to delete a random Photo

When I was connecting through Frankfurt Airport on my way to Berlin for the Ruse visit and the 7. Forum Solarpraxis last November 2006, I decided to play around with my new Canon Powershot SD800 IS digital camera. As I took a picture of the gate waiting lounge, my camera flashed because I had it in the wrong mode.

My first thought was I might get in trouble for violating an airport security rule. A few minutes later a German woman walks over to me. First she asked why I took her picture. I told her I did not take her picture; I took a photo of the whole room. Unsatisfied, she demanded I delete the photo. “Löschen Sie das Bild!” she commanded.

As a native born American traveling as press, this demand was not well received. I didn’t respond to this threat and put my camera away. I still don’t know why she thought herself so self important. I have three plausible explanations; she is either a politician, celebrity, or cheating on her husband. I will let you judge this from the photos above, but I discount the later two possibilities. The close up is a low resolution zoom on the original photo.

I might never have looked at this photo again. If the woman had asked me in a nice way, I would have deleted the photo on the spot instead of posting it to my Blog.

And Frankfurt is the worst airport for international connecting flights. Lufthansa still uses buses to haul passengers to and from the tarmac. All the buses are routed to Terminal B regardless of the location of your connection. As the kicker, you need to go through a security screen once more before getting to your departure gate. Forget booking tight connections through Frankfurt.