AsiaPundit has long admired animal photographers and nature documentarians and has occasionally wished that he were in a more adventurous line of work. Of course, that’s a naive view. Nature photography and documentaries, I have been assured, involve a lot of rather mundane waiting for a perfect shot. For instance, you may have to sit in the sun for hours or days waiting for a lion to attack a gazelle, and chances are you won’t get a kill shot.

Still, killing a few hours in the plains of the Serengeti would no doubt be a much cooler assignment than waiting for hours on a rainy Xiamen curbside. Though it seems you can still get great photos by doing the latter).

A photographer has come under fire in China for his pictures of a man falling off a bicycle.

The man came a spectacular cropper in Xiamen city after his bike hit a pot-hole submerged in rainwater.

But photographer Liu Tao was accused of lying in wait to take his pictures instead of warning people of the danger.

Readers of the Beijing Youth Daily, which published the shots, wrote in to express their feelings.

One wrote: “The pictures are well shot, but the person who shot this is disgusting. He knew there was a pit, but was waiting there for someone to fall over.”

Liu defended himself, saying: “I just knew that the city government has paved the pit, and without my pictures, the pit would not be noticed by the government, and there would perhaps be more people falling over.”

(via Boing Boing, Gordon)

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, media, northeast asia