Lessons in compassion...

A couple of days ago I attended a public meeting for the Denver Public School System about the closure of several middle schools in the area. I arrived a half hour early and started looking around the room. Noticing the children in the back of the room taking a look at the agenda I decided to wander back to make some pictures of them before the meeting. After the meeting started many of them started to get visibly upset while listening to several parents speak at the podium. As a photographer we are always looking for the image which best suites telling the story accurately. When I saw the kids get upset I began to quietly make pictures of them comforting each other and then decided to back off for awhile to let them have their moment. I was not the only photographer in the room at the time making these images. Another local photographer, whom I think is a pretty good guy usually, started making images of them after I did and would not stop the entire time. I felt like he was lingering too long and not letting them have their time and space. I understand that it is a public space and he needed to make a picture but what I don't understand is why he needed to make so many. I'm positive that my pictures had the same, or hopefully better, effect without the creepiness of lingering around like this photographer had done. So that's it. I needed to get this off my chest and hopefully learn more from the experience. We need to have compassion as photojournalists. Images of sensitive nature can be documented in a better fashion.