Photography,paedophilia and terrorism

[tomscott]

Sarah, This is pretty much what I was trying to say from the beginning, know your rights and stand up for them. Go out and take your photos and if someone gives you a hard time, and you know your within your rights, tell them that. Sitting around and whining to others about Cheneyism, and blaming the Right wing bible thumping conservatives, is doing neither. The only purpose that serves is to inflame and politicize an issue that effects all americans, not just liberals, and not just conservatives.

[sarah_fox]

"The only purpose that serves is to inflame and politicize an issue that effects all americans, not just liberals, and not just conservatives."

 

Inflame, yes. Politicize, no. What I think I see here is an attitude of, "Hey, what are ya' goin' ta' do? That's just the way things are." I feel strongly that the people have fallen asleep (all over the world, but particularly here in the US and in the UK), and I'm trying to help wake them up.

 

Please note that I didn't invoke liberal/conservative arguments. I didn't attribute any of this specifically to Cheney or Bush or the religious right or any particular party or administration. (I believe you have my posts confused with others in this thread.) I attribute these events very broadly to all political factions. In my eyes, most politicians are cut from the same cloth, irrespective of party. I speak only of our US Constitution, constitutions elsewhere, our rights under the Constitution, and the propensity of any government to strip us of whatever rights we don't zealously defend. We're not defending the freedoms our ancestors died to provide us, and so we are losing them. Very simple.

 

Finally, please understand there are many political issues about which I care very deeply and passionately, but they have all fallen subordinate to the issue of the erosion of our civil rights. When the foundation of our legal infrastructure (the Constitution) crumbles to dust, all else becomes irrelevant. So this is not about whether I can take a photograph in Washington's Union Station. I can, for now, sort of, so long as I look like a tourist, use a cheap camera, and leave my tripod at home. It is about whether I am a free person and, if so, whether I will continue to be free. So if I sound like I am whining, I assure you I am not. Rather, I am SCREAMING at the top of my lungs, hoping others will hear me and start screaming too. And I dearly hope that after Obama is elected (assuming it happens) that you will SCREAM at him for the restoration of the rights that have been taken away from us, as I intend to scream at him too (already have, in fact) -- because if we don't scream, it won't happen, no matter who sits in the Whitehouse.

[astral]

Preoccupation with these things has prety much killed street and social photography in many places in the UK ....

Parents aren't even allowed to photograph their own kids in the school Nativity Plays for fear of including

someone else's little brats and being branded a pervert! You know the rest of the story.

 

Times have changed and the world's a much less friendly and less tolerant place than 10 or 20 years ago. It ain't

my fault. But I sometimes while photographing in public feel that I'm perceived as the perpetrator of some

unknown and undefined crime - while I feel like a victim of some highly repressive, yet undefined law. The

situation has strong Kafka-esque and Orwellian resonance.

 

Most of the club photographers I know now restrict themselves to flowers and funghi - I forsee that there'll soon

be a law here about that too! Hang on! Sorry, there actually is a law about that: the Wildlife and Countryside

Act covers it.

 

Sadly the photographic press in the UK has so far only bleated and whined about the situation and hasn't yet

worked out how to campaign on behalf of all photographers. Hence, I fear we are likely to lose any remaining

freedoms, in the next few years, thru neglect, complacency and lack of concerted action. So, individually we have

to assert our rights and freedoms the best way we can - since no-one else is yet prepared to do it for us. I am

sure that we'll be having this conversation for years to come, and the situation will not get any better ....

sorry. AC

[tomscott]

Sarah, I never said that you were the one doing the whining, or that you were the one blaming certain political or religous beliefs or certain Govt officials, all I have done is try to speak up on behalf of my own beleifs and apparently that offends you, for which I am sorry, I don't think I am the one who is confused here.

[sprouty]

<I>"The technology is here, and it's being used, like it or not."</I>

<P>

I suggest you wear a Halloween mask from now on.

[martijn_houtman]

Sp, I am not sure what to make out of your remark about the Halloween mask, but I can confirm what Sarah said about the

presence of said technology, it is actually being used in a local store here to identify thieves, so surely governmental

organizations have access to it. Apart from that, I don't think Sarah was actually implying any judgement, other than just

stating the technology is there and being used.

[bernardwest]

Is anyone else getting sick of the one-line w@nkers around here? Sp., why don't you just admit you were wrong and give an apology, instead of another condescending one-liner.

 

By the way, I concur with what Sarah is saying. People need to wake up and stop taking their rights for granted. I'm not even sure why governments around the world are so keen on winding back some rights, but i'm fairly sure money plays a big part, as well as maintaining the fear factor.

[leo_papandreou1]

CBC has a 3 part radio documentary called the The Suspect Society which I recommend listening to. The MP3s are at http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/pastpodcasts.html under "The Best of Ideas".

[sprouty]

Sorry Bernie I was busy wanking, but I am curious how you knew that?

<P>

But I will respond to Sarah now: I am aware the technology exists, but I don't find it plausible that it is as

readily available as you appear to imply.

<P>

In fact I find it highly unlikely that the anyone outside of an overzealous security guard would even be

interested in a random person snapping pictures of a building that is NOT a government facility. Yet you not

only accept this at face value, you find it plausible this building has the technology to be able to allow an

organization like the FBI to pull a security camera frame and and then allow them to precisely compare it to an

image database of the non-criminal sector of a country with 300+ million people.

<P>

 

None of this make a stitch of sense if you think it through for more than one minute and it certainly doesn't

jibe with my experience of carrying a camera everywhere I go.

<P>

I get zero hassle in any part of the world I've been in, no matter what time of day or night I shoot.

<P>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/37135917@N00/2933162216/" title="Security Guard-October 06, 2008-001 by

Soapy Loofah, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3073/2933162216_e8de79fff5_o.jpg" width="511"

height="340" alt="Security Guard-October 06, 2008-001" /></a>

[sprouty]

By the way that image was shot at 1:39 AM in Baltimore last weekend. It was during an hour long stumble from Fells Point to back to my hotel in Mount Vernon.

[jack_welsh]

I had my camera on a tripod pointing up at Mars. A woman came home looked at me, went to her apartment. I was on the second floor balcony. About 5 minutes later, she, another lady and a man came out. The man walked across the parking lot and asked me what I was doing. "taking a picture of Mars!" He said I was freaking everybody out! The angle of Mars would have made it double the height of the building.People have mistaken telescopes for cannons. Back in the old days, people knew what looking and photographing the sky was about, not anymore!

[sprouty]

Were you using one of these?

 

http://www.oobject.com/category/14-cameras-that-look-just-like-guns/

[tonmestrom]

Quite interesting and amazing thread this is. A few years ago there was a big polemic about a planned exhibition of

Mapplethorpe. If I remember correctly it centered about some nude children portraits. It's all mass psychology.

People should use their commons sense, that's all.

 

Also I see no political or social conspiracy other than your Patriot Act and the way it translates into daily life. You've

got ways to adress that though, coming november in fact. And while it's true that some of it affected policy in the

United Kingdom and France as well, although there to a lesser extent, I have never had any trouble there. It's been

said many many times here, it's all about attitude.

 

Lex is right about context but there is a bit more to it as well. I have worked and still work in most major cities in

Europe. Some of the neighbourhoods I worked were decidedly unsavory. You just have to got an antenna when to

shoot and when to pack up.

 

Can you get clobbered when shooting on the street? Sure you can but while it's true that trees don't hit back ;-) you

can easily trip and hurt yourself. The point merely being that life is one big risk, it's up to each and everyone of you to

decide to what extent you let your life be influenced by that.

One thing I know for sure though, paranoia never helps.

[sarah_fox]

Curtis, I'm not offended. Don't worry. :-)

 

Sp ..., I can't attest to the needle-in-a-haystack aspect of all of this, but it is hard for me to imagine, for instance, that there are more than 2 people who look alike (driver's license image database) within a 200 mi radius (DL records), who are either amateur or pro photographers (as evidenced by their participation in forums such as this, their frequent references to photographic terms in their emails, etc. -- information gleaned with ongoing Internet surveillance). How hard would they have had to work to do a search in such a massive database? Dunno... How hard is it to search Google's massive database?

 

And how much would they care? I don't really know. I think it's all an intimidation game for now -- somewhat like early Gestapo tactics. A few years ago, a friend of mine made an off-color joke about the president in a telephone conversation and found herself detained for a day of interrogation by scary men in black suits. Do you really think they cared that much about the joke (which was admittedly in poor taste), or do you think it was more a matter of discouraging her (and her friends) from being too outspoken against the current administration?

 

All I know is that there is great value in spreading awareness of the problem. If you're not a bit afraid, you're not paying attention. It's a brave new world, Sp ...

[jack_welsh]

SP, it was an old Minolta SRT 101.

[sprouty]

Really? Your friend was detained by law enforcement after they heard a comment she made because they had a wire

tap on her telephone line?

 

I'm not sure what I find more amusing, the idea that you might actually believe that or the idea that you think I

might.

 

I still feel my recommendation about wearing a Halloween mask is a good option, but in your case I would suggest

you line it with foil.

[sarah_fox]

Yes, "Sp ..." that's exactly what happened. (I didn't mention that she had made annual trips to DC to lobby for civil rights, which I suppose was her real "crime.") If you don't believe me, then you don't believe me -- your problem, not mine. It happens. Civil rights activists and other "dissidents" get harrassed sometimes. Read the news.

 

And yes, the NSA does listen in on our telephone conversations, both with human listeners and more broadly with voice recognition software. I'm surprised you don't know this, because it's been all over the mainstream news for... er... YEARS. It's probable even been mentioned several dozen times on Fox.

[sprouty]

<I>"And yes, the NSA does listen in on our telephone conversations...</I>

<P>

I'm going to bow out at this point.

[leo_papandreou1]

<i>I'm going to bow out at this point.</i>

<p>

"This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and

prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this

secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result,

our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages

our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our

enemies, and endangers our country."

<p>

"The authorization I gave the National Security Agency after September the 11th helped address that problem in a

way that is fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities. The activities I have

authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time. And

the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in

the United States and abroad. "

[jodys]

I've had varied responses to street photography over the years. The absolute worst was from a 1982 trip to Zaire (now D.R. Congo), where photographers were assaulted and could be beaten to death by an angry mob if they were caught. I took a few rolls of film anyway, from a moving vehicle, and heard quite a number of outraged screams when people saw me. Some threw rocks; fortunately, none connected. Needless to say, I didn't get the quality of photos I would have liked, trying to frame and focus an SLR from the window of a moving car, whipping it out from under a bag, taking the shot, hiding it, and speeding off.

 

More recently, I've spent some time in Montreal, in Old Montreal, the port of Montreal, around grain silos and a flour mill (flour dust is explosive, and the Five Roses facility in Montreal feeds a substantial % of the population; plus, a third of North America's shipping goes through the Seaway); I've gone down back alleys in the worst parts of town, I've taken a series of shots of trains in front of abandoned port facilities, while the train engineers were coupling cars in an area that was clearly marked as off-limits to the public... no one has ever bothered to even ask what I'm doing. The two factors I can identify is 1) I try to look and act like a photography student, I use older gear, carry ratty camera bags, etc, and 2) Montreal is a lot more laid back than NY or anywhere in the UK, when it comes to photography.

 

It's not that I wouldn't like to try this in NY; I intend to do so some day. I plan on using an old rig like a Pentax Spotmatic, I'll dress in my worst ripped jeans, I'll spend a lot of time staring at the sun & clouds, I'll use an old light-meter on a string around my neck. Plus, and this helps more than I care to admit even in Montreal, I'm white.

 

I do think that part of the problem is that since the advent of the cheap digital camera, fewer and fewer people think of photography as art, much less a fine art. Photography is now a means to document, a tool for ebayers and real estate agents, a tool in social exchanges among teenagers, and a lot more; but people do not automatically assume someone carrying a camera is an artist. So it helps, I find, if you dress and act the part. Be eccentric, you'll have less hassle than if you try to fit in.<div></div>

[bradfernihough]

Interesting thread.

 

I am off to Wash DC for 6 weeks soon. Sarah, do i really need a point and shoot and no tripod? I have full plans to shoot the city from front to back and inside out with my pro-gear!

[bradfernihough]

One of the issues, i think, is knee jerk reactions to a recent incident in Aust, where a famous photographer took nude images of minors and displayed them as art. That caused traditional arguments and conjecture about art vs kiddieporn, But then the proverbial hit the fan when it was discovered that the principal of a school allowed him to roam the school yard "scouting out the talent".

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/06/2382757.htm

 

http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/18/Bill_Henson/1098/

 

I would not be a happy parent if my kids went to that school, no matter how you want to spin it. So now, the government will hammer this issue to the point where people will soon get arrested for just carrying a pro-camera through a park.

[sarah_fox]

Brad, I'm a rather rural photographer, so I'm not the best person to ask. The last time I was in DC with a fancy camera was pre-911. I'll try to summarize what I've read on this forum, though. You're probably OK with an SLR/DSLR, so long as you leave the tripod at home. Of course a big camera with a vertical grip (e.g. 1 series or x0D series with battery grip) might draw attention. Smaller is probably better. In some locations, like Union Station, amateurish looking gear will help. Overly long lenses, particularly big-white Canon lenses, might get you some negative attention. It depends on where you are, but if you are shooting in the vicinity of any public/government building, landmark, or security-sensitive location, there might be an issue. If you're white and look fairly mainstream, there might be less of an issue. As suggested by Jody, you probably will get by with more if you dress conspicuously as a tourist. (They sell very cheap tourist T-shirts there, BTW.)

 

If you're going to be in DC for 6 weeks, I'd still bring the pro gear, tripod, and some amateur gear too. See what works. If you get too much negative attention with the pro gear, fall back to the amateur gear.

 

There's a young photographer named Cassius Callender (cassiuscallender.com) who works in that area. You should probably ask him what works and doesn't work. He'd be a far better source of information.

 

I'd be very appreciative if you would email me later to tell me what your experiences were. I'll be doing some photography of landmark buildings in DC in the intermediate future.

[sprouty]

Brad I was in Baltimore last weekend, then DC on Monday and Tuesday. I walked all over the city, with a big DSLR from noon until 2:00 AM. Shot photos of everything, monuments, buildings, people in the street, people in cars, drunk people in bars, security guards (some sleeping, some awake), some chick with her butt-crack showing.

 

Zero issues, no one approached me, no one said anything, no one even blinked an eye.

 

There were people with cameras absolutely everywhere, it has to be one of the most photographed cities in the world and it will be your loss if you fall victim to the paranoid mentality expressed around here.

[sprouty]

Leo, I'm aware of your citation, but if you truly believe that someone is listening to your phone calls right now then rational discussion is impossible. Read what Sarah wrote in latest post: <I>"The last time I was in DC with a fancy camera was pre-911. I'll try to summarize what I've read on this forum,..."</I>

<P>

People love to repeat information that they have no first hand knowledge of. Last weekend (not 8 years ago) there were people of every race, creed, and color imaginable taking pictures of every statue, monument and building you could point a camera at in DC. There was an absolute minimum of security. People with cameras are not a big concern to our government.