Lunchtime Poll Topic #13

Happy Friday!

Today's LTPT stems from a pet peeve of mine. I want to know if I'm weird for being bugged by it.

If you ask a stranger to take your picture, is it rude for everyone else in your group to hand over their cameras and expect the stranger to take a picture with all of their cameras too?

This happens frequently whenever I'm out with the BFFs, and I'll just say it--it makes me want to die of embarrassment.

We'll be out somewhere, and one of them decides they want a picture of us all. They wrangle some poor, unsuspecting stranger into taking one. Before they know what hits them, they've got three or four cameras being thrust at them. And often, someone asks the stranger to take two or three shots (cough*Sylwia*cough).

It mortifies me.

I got a small amount of vindication last week, though. We went out to dinner, and since it was our last outing before some move away, cameras were a-plenty. In the restaurant, the table next to us was celebrating a birthday and the table beside that was occupied by ladies from The Red Hat Society. For whatever reason, certain members of our group thought it would be fun to have our picture taken with the The Red Hat Ladies. Now, this wasn't just a regular restaurant. This was a Japanese Steak House, so the showmanship of the cook is part of what you're paying for (and in this case, waited hours for a table for).

So, not only did members of our party intrude upon the Red Hat Ladies' dining experience by having them pose for a picture with us, but the mother of the guy whose birthday was being celebrated was the one asked to take our picture (with four cameras!). The birthday boy was getting his special song and cake (which you had to pay extra for, by the way), when our group insisted on the photography session. The poor mother was trying to watch the performance being done for her son while also snapping pictures for us. She wasn't even looking in the cameras. She was just holding them up in our general direction and pushing the button. I'm pretty sure none of them came out. Karma, people.

So, that's my rant for the day.
What do you think? Is it rude to impose upon a stranger for pictures? Is it O.K. if it's just one shot with one camera (I think that's fine--I mean these are digital cameras. How hard is it to e-mail them to everyone else?), or is it always rude? Or do we just expect the world to be our personal paparazzi?