Reply #10: as a photographer, my instincts in freaky situations are to sit still and "record" -->

[nashville_brook]

also, i think there's a bit of human nature (especially with young people) that we don't actually believe that the extraordinary is actually happening while it's happening. in order to acknowledge the weirdness of a situation, we often must review the footage.

As with 9/11 -- I was working in an airport that day (my job that day was to roam the airport and offer support/comfort to stranded travelers), and everyone was grounded, watching the tube, trying to figure out what was going on. Even after the towers fell people didn't have a grasp of the situation. No one spoke -- they just watched the TVs. Even outside taking smoke breaks, no one had anything to say -- we were waiting for someone else to explain what we had just witnessed in pictures.

All that to say, it would totally be my instinct to keep a camera trained on the action. It would keep me calm, and detached, and out of the way. That's just me.