Stranger With A Camera

Elizabeth Barret documentary film "Stranger With A Camera" was about a local of her town named Hobart Ison who shoots and kills a photographer Hugh O' Conner. Barret story is how Hugh O' Conner was a man trying to help out poverity stricken people all over the world. And how O' Conner came to Eastern Kentucky to help to photos of poverity people to help let the rest of the world know whats going on. Hobart Ison was one of these Eastern Kentucky natives and was a very proud man, he didnt like the idea of people coming around taking pictures of them at there worst. Ison thought that they were trying to embaress his people, and make fun of them. Ison didnt want people thinking that him and the other poverity people where back ward hill billys. One day O' Conner went to take photos of a family that lived on Ison's property, when a car drove by warning him that a man was coming to tell them to get off his property. Shortly later Ison drove up yelling "Get off my property" with a pistol in his hand, shortly after shooting a couple rounds off in the air. O' Conner and crew were carrying there equipment off and saying "were leaving, were leaving." O' Conner was carrying a heavy piece of equipment and turned around to tell Ison that he was leaving when all of a sudden Ison shot O' Conner in the chest, while falling down O' Conner had said "why did you have to do that?" Later Ison was in trial for the murder but it was hard to find jury that hadnt heard the story and were not bias. So Ison was offered a plea bargain of 10 years at max, with a chance of paroll after one. After one year Ison was let fear out of jail. Many of O' Conners film team that were at the trial felt that the murder case was more of a man defending his land from people making fun of it more than it was of a man shooting another man, Ison was thought in some peoples eyes as some kind of hero. Barret was a local of Ison at the time and remeber's her view of how she thought that Ison was almost right for doing it and not knowing at the time what O' Conners story was. Barret's documentray was more than just the story of the shooting, it was also of how she feels as a film maker that its her responsilbilty to get what she believes is the truth from both sides and in the end trust that that is enough.