Are you getting harrassed taking shots?

No Amy, it's (wait for it...)

the Rockette's Red Glare...

{Sorry With apologies to Francis Scott Key.}

bob

SFishy said:

Ya really have to watch out for them... They'll kick your butt

LOL

Amy (who cracks herself up with stupid corny jokes)
--

Click to expand...

the sidewalk is public property
the goons were bar bouncers daylighting

if i had pointed a big tele into the windows
i could understand a question
but i was merely walking by to the kencen parking lot

anybody can take pictures of anything
from public space

that is not spying
that is called being a tourist

you wanna see the photos i got in paris
of and from the eiffel tower

montmarte and sacre coeur

the mcdonalds

the arab embassy
the meeting in the embassy through the picture window..........

sealsphoto said:

speedball said:

i got hassled by hired goons from the arab embassy in dc
when i walked on "thier" sidewalk

i wasnt taking pix
just walking buy

got the third degree
from two big musclebound goons

they said the embassy didnt like photographs
i mentioned the constitution and kept on walking

Click to expand...

If the sidewalk is considered part of the embassy property, then
mentioning the constitution is wasting your breath. Embassy grounds
are sovereign property of the government they represent, and if the
sidewalk is part of that property then US laws don't count. Just
like our embassy in any other country is considered US soil. The
'goons' are probably highly trained equivelants to our US Marines
that guard our embassy. And, even if you were on US soil, you can't
take pictures of the property of another country. That country
could consider that as spying, and try to get you extradited for
trial as a spy. Probably wouldn't happen, but why risk it?

--
A picture is a picture, a photograph is an extension of your mind.

sealsphoto

Click to expand...

--
please support the national parkinsons disease foundation
and/or the michael j fox foundation

bronxbombers said:

Phileas Fogg said:

Many people just love to live in total paranoid fear. The insanity
of it all would be funny if it was not so sad.

Click to expand...

nobody even goes for trick or treat in my town anymore, when I was
little there would be throngs of us, hundreds upon hundreds goign
around late into the night, now my parents say it's amazing if the
bell rings more than once the whole night....

Click to expand...

They still do it here but for two hours on just one night. Parents almost always are along to watch the kids. We used to go out with our friends for three nights. No parents ever went along that I can remember and we were only warned to be careful crossing streets in the dark and check out the candy a little bit when we got home. I do remember one incident my parents were talking about when I was a kid. Razor blade or something. You really hit paydirt when somebody made popcorn balls. We were allowed to eat them.

I still do it just for the kids anyway. Lots of people don't turn their lights on or aren't home. That's the signal to the kids there's no candy at that house. But the costumes! They are so sophisticated now. We had to make do with old sheets and our mother's makeup.

bronxbombers said:

actual incidents of any sort are amazingly rare, and they are
pretty much going to happen anyway, andI doubt they are happening
anymore these days than 10+ years ago.

Click to expand...

I think that's because we hit the top of the bell curve in the danger zone and parents go along now and hardly anybody gives candy that isn't wrapped at the factory.

speedball said:

the sidewalk is public property

Click to expand...

Maybe it is just me, but I would want to know if the sidewalk was part of the embassy property before I made any comments to guards that I might regret. In my state, the property line extends to the street, not the sidewalk. The sidewalk might have been put there by the city, but if I don't keep it clear and someone falls on it, they sue me, not the city, because it is on my propery.

speedball said:

the goons were bar bouncers daylighting

Click to expand...

Could be, but I still would not argue without knowing the status of the sidewalk.

speedball said:

if i had pointed a big tele into the windows
i could understand a question
but i was merely walking by to the kencen parking lot

Click to expand...

And your original post said that the 'goons' said they didn't like photos taken. They didn't say you were taking any, they just stated that the embassy didn't like photos taken.

speedball said:

anybody can take pictures of anything
from public space

Click to expand...

Well......again, an embassy is sovereign ground, and not subject to American laws, just like our embassy is not subject to the laws of the host country.

speedball said:

that is not spying
that is called being a tourist

Click to expand...

Again, maybe it is just me, but I would not want to test that theory.

speedball said:

you wanna see the photos i got in paris
of and from the eiffel tower

Click to expand...

Last time I checked, the Eiffel Tower was not an embassy.

speedball said:

montmarte and sacre coeur

the mcdonalds

the arab embassy
the meeting in the embassy through the picture window..........

Click to expand...

--
A picture is a picture, a photograph is an extension of your mind.

sealsphoto

I did an engagement shot in August up in Detroit. They wanted some shots by the river and in some parks near the Renaissance Center. We were approached twice by building security. The first one I obliged and left that area, then they just followed me around when we were by the river to make sure I didn't get any shots of it in the background. When I asked him how he was, he just said that he was told to follow me around to make sure I didn't take any shots of the towers AND.............of the Canadian border across the river!!!!!!!!! What the h*ll!!! What does building security have to do with border patrol? I find it ironic that a lot of jobs are being send to Canada to produce products such as cars and maintenance on our aircraft, but I cannot take a picture of the coastline across the river. Oh well, I'm glad that Jason posted that link earlier, I will have to give a good look over.
Ok, I'm done venting. ;-)
Ken
--
Happy to Photograph!
Ken
http://kennyb.smugmug.com

--

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.



http://www.nyphotos.net ~ http://www.something-fishy.com/photography

I've never been approached at Rock Center when I shoot. It's pretty obvious that I have a large slr and long lens too. I hang out on the Plaza and sidewalks shooting and never once been approached. You must have been there last week when the UN was in session and half the delegates were over at the auction house bidding on stuff to take back home.
George
--

Damn...I just read all these post hoping to hear a "confrontation gone bad" story but you are all way to nice.

Jay

no text

There was so litte Trick-or-Treat activity in my neighbourhood that I took off my costume and tried my new 50 mm lens in the dark. I got a nice picture of my pumpkin and one of the only decorated houses. A weird thing I've noticed is that children no longer walk the neighbourhood. The few that play outdoors are watched closely by paranoid parents. Sometimes it seems that their paranoia increases if I walk by a park with the camera while taking pictures of birds, flowers, and other animals.

I would have put my camera on burst mode and pointed my lens at the building and fired off about 20 shots and then have told the min wage rent-a-cop to get a life. If I'm on public property I'l shoot photos of anything I want. If I shoot comercially other people I will get a model release signed.

This CR@P I keep reading here gets my back up.

--
visit my photo gallary of images from my 10D

http://phileas.fotopic.net/c258181.html

There was some vandalism in the "old days", but we used to take bags of corn to scatter for the trick part. I only played that trick once for people who weren't home. Then I felt a little guilty after even though it didn't damage anything. The corn must have been a local "tradition".

I catch the kids outside playing sometimes and they love having me take their pictures (but I'm tired of the ugly backdrops and wires, etc.) They stay inside more than they used to. I've got some wonderful shots of a kool aid stand a couple years ago, but then there's that ugly telephone pole right next to where they set up shop. I'd rather photograph them in a nicer setting.

Things have really changed. Parents are more vigilant, but kids still roam around here pretty freely, sometimes too freely. Have a couple of stories regarding that and photography.

My daughter got the neatest pictures of a boy and a girl in a huge tree in the park just this week. It's too bad she didn't turn the exposure comp down and frame them a little better. Still they could be cropped, and a couple of them are quite nice.

Then we started discussing what she could do with them, can't really enter them in POTD, advised her not to post any pictures of non relative kids on the net w/o parents' permission and she was wondering how the parents would react to her if she gave them the pictures of the kids in the big old tree. She must have gotten their names. Parents sometimes appreciate it, but you must prepare yourself for some very unappreciated negative reactions/outcomes.

It's a super big problem with kids. Most are busy with after-school activities and spend more time inside than my generation did. I kind of feel sorry for them; their lives seem overly structured. The paranoia factor around here doesn't seem too bad, but I know if I were raising kids again, I don't think I would let them go to the park alone and try to keep them closer to home. My kids had certain freedoms, but there were rules, and I had to know where they were and when. I was more worried about them getting hit by a car on their bikes or crossing the busy streets when crossing guards weren't out.

Now I would be very concerned about bad strangers because I had a couple of incidents with my kids that could have gone bad very quickly, won't go into it. There are probably things I don't know about. I was too trusting of caregivers and would definitely be more vigilant and background checking about the kind of people who cared for them while I worked. There was an incident with my son that he didn't tell me about until years later at a city-run day care center. And once on a supervised outing to a park in a bad part of town, some kids beat him up on the swings.

Sometimes it's easier being female when capturing candid shots of kids, but you still have to deal with possible negative reactions from parents. Big cities would be worse.

Tom K. said:

President Wilson (a Democrat) threw civil liberties out the window
during WWI. It was so off the chart, progressives who got him
elected turned on him in the mid-terms of 1918, giving the GOP
total control of House & Senate. Free press was effectively
suspended during the War, and speaking out in public against The
President could (and did) land you in jail.

Click to expand...

Robert Goldstein's 1917 "Spirit of '76"--an American Revolution film--got him thrown in jail for 3 years (a ten-year sentence, but commuted by Wilson in 1920) for making our ally Great Britain look bad.

http://slate.msn.com/id/1005493/

Wilson really was about the worst president we've had, a pro-Klan racist who forced strict segregation on a then reasonably integerated Federal civil service, and eagerly threw all variety of opponents in jail--suffregates, Socialist presidential candidate Debs, union leaders, etc.

But things weren't great even before Wilson--check out the article on the front page of http://www.photopermit.org --in the aftermath of the 1900 Galveston hurricane photographers--"Kodak fiends"--were given the same summary executions as looters.

Doesn't sound like the kind, gentle city I know. You're lucky he didn't club you and steal your camera. (Oh, that's right, that would be an NYC cop, wouldn't it?)

Real question is "Where is your tripod permit?"

Rockette launcher in your pack.

--
Jim H.

Forgot about the pro-Klan stuff. A real charmer.

I am a working pro, so it is obvious when I pull up somewhere in my car what I am doing (my car has my studio name all over it). I was at a city owned park last spring early on a Saturday morning doing a senior portrait session. There is an area in this park that has an old 1800's era town in it. Those old buildings with the big front porches are wonderful for portraits. Anyway, there is a non profit group that cares for these buildings, and they were there doing a work day. We were careful not to get in the way of the folks working on cleaning up the place for the summer season, when a little grey haired lady walked over and wanted to know if I was on their list of supporters. She went and got the president of the group, who informed me that I could not photograph there unless I was on their list of supporters. The little grey haired lady told me they could call the police and have me removed. Because I had a paying customer with me and we were pretty much done by that time anyway, I didn't want to cause a scene, so I said that we would leave, but to expect a phone call from my attorney.

To make a long story short, I called the city attorney's office on Monday morning and explained what had happened. I asked if there was a new rule about tax paying citizens having to pay a non profit group to use city property. I was told that I would get a return phone call. On Friday of that week, I got a call from the attorney for the Parks Dept., who apologized for the problem and wanted to make sure I was not upset and that I was not going to sue the city. I later found out from the husband of another little grey haired lady who also works with that group that the city attorney's office and the head of the Parks Dept. had a meeting with the president of the group and informed her that she could not charge anyone a fee, and if they did not stop they would be removed from caring for the buildings. Something was said along the lines of "you are going to get this city sued into bankruptcy for trying to enforce a rule that does not exist."

There are two points to my story. (1) Getting upset and arguing would have done nothing except raise my blood pressure and make me look stupid in front of my customer. I would have lost on both points. (2) This was a little grey haired lady in her 80's that was trying to run the show. So, it is not just Security Guards that you have to watch out for. Be sure to scope the location for Security Granny before taking a paying customer in.
--
A picture is a picture, a photograph is an extension of your mind.

sealsphoto

KennyB said:

I did an engagement shot in August up in Detroit. They wanted some
shots by the river and in some parks near the Renaissance Center.
We were approached twice by building security. The first one I
obliged and left that area, then they just followed me around when
we were by the river to make sure I didn't get any shots of it in
the background. When I asked him how he was, he just said that he
was told to follow me around to make sure I didn't take any shots
of the towers AND.............of the Canadian border across the
river!!!!!!!!! What the h*ll!!! What does building security have to
do with border patrol? I find it ironic that a lot of jobs are
being send to Canada to produce products such as cars and
maintenance on our aircraft, but I cannot take a picture of the
coastline across the river. Oh well, I'm glad that Jason posted
that link earlier, I will have to give a good look over.
Ok, I'm done venting. ;-)
Ken

Click to expand...

Hahaha it's one of the BIG PARTS of our HOMELAND SECURITY

And I guess it would be more scary story til they have figured out exactly what to do to keep their easily making money job with too much responsibility doing nothing

Does anyone kow of a similar resource for Canada? Our Charter outlines our rights and freedoms and is designed to protects our rights. However, I have not been able to find anything as specific to photography.

Cheers!

Just take the pictute from the Canadian side, no hassles.



--
Aaron Thomson