urban ku # 194 ~ I'm not so sure that there's a big problem here ...
Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 01:30PM 
Grand Central Station ~ NYC • click to embiggenA question has arisen from my past few entries, not about the topics therein but one the comes from the obvious subject matter of the accompanying pictures - that question being:
... after viewing yesterday and todays images, I was wondering if you have ever been stopped and questioned by the police?
I have read so many stories since 9/11 about photographers being detained and even arrested ....
My response - I have only once been confronted about picturing and, quite honestly, it was not really a confrontation at all. That happened when I was making this picture and this picture.
As I was walking on a sidewalk outside of the Georgia Pacific Plant in Plattsburgh looking for referents which caught my eye and making a few pictures of the same, a gentleman who appeared to be a production line manager approached me, extended his hand in a handshake manner (we shook hands), and introduced himself by name. I did the same.
He politely asked of what it was I was making pictures. I responded that I was merely an "art" photographer looking to make pictures of interesting light on interesting shapes and forms, all the while gesturing in a rather indiscriminate manner at the factory. He accepted that, offered his thanks and went on about his business, which seemed to be that of crossing the street from one part of the facility to another. It did not appear that he had emerged from the place to specifically question me.
And that was that.
That said, and relative to my pictures of NYC, I have never had a problem in NYC. Maybe I'm just lucky but I think not. Rather, IMO, it seems that the blog-o-sphere and the media have made much hay out of a relatively few - relative to the zillions of pictures made in public places everyday - incidents of photographers who have had problems. FYI, I'm not talking about problems in war zones or third world countries.
Now I'm not excusing those who are, shall we say, rather overzealous in their efforts to protect the citizenry from those who might do it harm but it also seems to me that most of the nastier incidents are the result of the activities private dicks, and I do mean "dicks" in the worst sense of the word - those under the hire and auspices of private industry and interests as opposed to, in my case, "NY's finest".
I'll never forget about an incident that occurred long before 9/11 (in fact, I believe it was in 1993). None other than David Letterman had just switched his television show from NBC to CBS, which was owned General Electric Corp. So, one evening during his show, he and a cameraman attempted to enter GE headquarters there in Manhatten to "introduce" himself to his new co-workers and deliver a "thank you" basket of fruit to GE management. The security forces responded immediately and they were none to friendly. In fact they were downright hostile. There was much pushing and shoving, especially so directed at the cameraman. It was, in a word, rather ugly.
All of that said, there is no denying that thanks to George Bush & Company - and with a very special nod (to include the middle finger) to Dick (there's that word again) Cheney - the rule of fear that they have fostered has done much to erode our civil liberties here in the good ole US of A.
Reader Comments (4)
Mark, Thanks for your response to this.
I reired from NYS as a Senior Court officer where I worked in County and Supreme Courts. I never stopped anyone from taking pictures of the building or the lobby even after 9/11. Of course the press was different and judges were different as far as letting them shoot inside. On Naturalization Day we had people from all over the World taking pictures inside the building including the courtroom of the new citizens and we let it go.
Soon after 9/11, I have found myself surrounded by friendly military police telling me in no uncertain terms that I could not photograph—from the road—a nice brook with some big old trees because it was part of the Vermont Air National Guard base. I had frequently photographed there before without incident and so expressed some surprise that there was a problem. The MPs told me there was a storage depots “behind the trees…you can’t see them from here.” I was tempted to suggest that if they could not be seen, maybe they were safe from being photographed by an amateur like me, but thought the better of it as it was only April of 2002—too soon for sanity to return. In the ensuing years, I have been chased from the sidewalks of an open-air shopping mall in my town because the second floor of a nearby building was occupied by offices of the immigration service. Okay, I thought, although if the immigration services are so top-secret, maybe a suburban shopping mall is not a good place to locate them. The photographic opportunities were not worth crossing some self-important mid-level bureaucrat, so I left. I have been told not to photograph inside the Burlington Square Mall by security, vaguely citing some unidentified “federal law”. Just this past summer, I was stopped from photographing on the campus of the University of Vermont because, in the words of one of the two security guards, I was a “threat to homeland security.” I had never aspired to such statue, but I suppose it is more exalted than “some guy with a camera.” When I suggested that UVM lacks the symbolic value that would make it a potential target they just got made. Well, the one probably named Barney Fife got mad. I suppose he found my suggestion that, viewed from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, UVM had about as much prominence as Al’s French Fries, our local cholesterol emporium. The other offered the possibility that my photograph could be used to count the windows of the faculty offices. I suggested that terrorists are not morons and could probably count the windows without photographing them. In fact, there is no episode of terrorism in which the terrorists are known to have taken photographs of their targets before striking. Then he got mad. I noted that UVM teaches photography courses and asked where students completed their assignments if on-campus was off-limits. That made them real mad. Warming to the absurdity of the situation, I also pointed out that of the thousands of students who pass across campus on any given weekday, most were probably carrying cell phones with cameras in them. Tempting fate, I also reminded them that I was on a public sidewalk, known a “public forum” under first amendment law, which covers photography, and was photographing objects in plain view. They threatened to arrest me for trespass. I had better things to do than become a civil liberties martyr that evening so I left.
So, yes—me thinks we have a problem.
In my day job I've been in law enforcement for about 20 years, I really don't think we do have (much) of a problem here either, but there are a couple of obvious points. If you look out of place in some way, or to be absolutely honest about this - you are going out of your way to be noticed, you will attract attention and some of it will be from the police, doesn't matter if you are a photographer or just doing whatever. Second, wear a tie and a high visibility jacket and you can photograph just about whatever you like with out a second glance.
Neil.
(This happened in London)
I was stopped and searched by the police last week, under the powers for the 'anti terrorism laws' Their opening statement was along the lines of 'look, we don't think you really are a terrorist, but we are stopping photographers to make people aware that we are being vigilant and stopping people who are using cameras'
They then proceeded to question me, wanted to go through the pictures I'd been taking etc.
As far as I can tell from their opening statement (the 'we don't think you are a terrorist') that the rest of it was then illegal - but I didn't really feel like spending half of my two day break in London arguing in a police station.
After flicking through the images one of them commented 'oh, these are just like the sorts of pictures a terrorist would be taking' then gave me a cheery smile and started asking about my camera (how many mega pixels does that one have then, how much did it cost etc)
So, the general plan in the UK seems to be to stop and illegally search photographers as much as possible. Just to be seen to be doing something.
and here's the image I got stopped for taking
http://flickr.com/photos/mcgregorphoto/3273528803/