Small Cameras to hide in your pocket

[JDMvW]

<p>Hmm, wandered a little off topic, have we? Watch out for those black helicopters....<br>

(Whistles theme from <em>Twilight Zone</em> =WTFTZ)</p>

[jerry_friedman]

<p>Gosh, how brave you all are to take on the nasty police state by keeping a small camera in your pocket!!! How can you stand yourselves?? Why, we are all so indebted to you!!! All of civilization hangs in the balance but you have come through for all of us!!! You are the true watchmen of society!!!! Where were you during WWII, and how did we manage without you?? And just imagine how wonderful you will be when you grow up??? This is more than a little off topic. But if this is where the left is, none of the rest of us are in any danger at all.</p>

[JDMvW]

<blockquote>

<p>But if this is where the left is, none of the rest of us are in any danger at all.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Umm, Jerry? These guys are not on the <em><strong>left</strong> </em> , you know. Au contraire, mon frère. наоборот.</p>

[cliffmanley]

<p>This is not off topic. You will want small classic cameras and you need to get film now. This is not a right or left thing, but rather a world thing. The economies of the world are being systematically crashed and the factories that make film will be likely be closing down like everything else, and you will not likely be able to get film if you wait.<br>

Photography WAS very important in WWII, and even the lens coatings were top secret. Photography has been important in all wars since the Civil War and it still is today. From satellite surveillance , drone aircraft, helmet cams on the troops, as well as mounted on the guns themselves, that can look around corners. There are black helicopters, and they have cameras too!</p>

[Rob_the_waste]

<p>Jerry. What's being expounded is the importance of cameras in the future. There has been no other form of media that has been able to document events and happenings as effectively as film or digital imaging. What Cliff is getting at is the time is coming where EMP's can and will knock out electronic circuitry which includes digital recording equipment (both audio and video). Classic film cameras may be the only remaining alternative at some time in the future to be able to record events as they happen. Personally, I'm apolitical. I haven't voted in the last fifteen years because I think this left versus right argument is complete BS! How can you decide who is a better candidate for an office when all candidates have been hand picked by people who have never, are not now, and never will be influenced by what we think of them? </p>

[cliffmanley]

<p>Many people would like to deny the fact the Holocaust ever happened, and if it were not for the films and photographs they might get away with it. The future is no less important to capture for mankind to ponder their deeds. To believe nothing is happening in the world is not being very realistic. I know a lot of people just wish it would all go away and they could go back to the way it was, but that is simply not the case.</p>

[peter_de_waal]

<p> </p>

<p >Hey Jerry, If you want the left down our neck of the woods, try here:</p>

<p > </p>

<p >http://unityaotearoa.blogspot.com/</p>

<p > </p>

<p >I spend more time reading the Telegraph's financial pages (amongst others) myself. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is very entertaining on the markets at the moment.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Personally I have had more trouble from the private security guard types than the Police. I too have had jumped-up jerks in S.S. wanna-be outfits hassle me about collecting used boxes for selling stuff on the big web site. I usually tell them that I am a "fleamarket crapitalist" and they leave you to it. Perhaps it is because homeless people tend to look for cardboard in the evenings to make bedding with and one of their jobs/pleasures is to move such people on.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >I think the emphasis has to be reconsidered here. The goal is to get photographs of a political event and use them as an evidential record for any one of a number of reasons. To prove that it happened. To prove that there were a certain number of people in attendance. To record any excesses by the Police or others and to record the actions of plain-clothes state actors. To record those Police recording the events and have material to challenge their photographic evidence in probable later Court appearances. This is one area where photographers can prove vital, as an image from a different viewpoint often seriously compromises what is being said about an image being presented by the prosecution.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >I think the singular emphasis on what photo equipment you should use is dangerous. Situational awareness at such events is far more important. Safety first!</p>

<p > </p>

<p >I always go to such events in a group with people I know well. I would NEVER go to a demonstration by myself. I think the minimum number for a demo group is 6 people. Rendezvous elsewhere and arrive at the event as a group. Have a plan for what you will do in the event of A, B, C... occurring.</p>

<p >Keep an eye out for the others in the group. When and if you decide to leave the demo leave as a group. The Police snatch squads or the opposition are more likely to go for a lone individual than half a dozen people working in unison. Even the riot Police are wary of organised groups no matter how small. They may like to beat up individual demonstrators when they can get away with it, but like most bullies they become cowards as soon as the possibility of their own personal injury arises.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >If possible, and if the story is important, try to get someone posted to watch your back so you can concentrate on the action.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Beware of mad people. Such events do become a "tribune of the oppressed", unfortunately some of them are not very rational.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Be especially aware of anyone who insists on covering their face. They may be middle class anarchist youth making a fashion statement, but they could just as easily be "agents provocateur" working to give the Riot Police a reason to get rough. I steer well clear of such people.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Never considered the use of some kind of E.M.P. weapon to knock out people's digi cameras at demos. I guess it would make sense given that everybody you see at such events these days has at least a cell phone cam. It's kind of surreal (or even comical) to see hundreds of people all standing still holding their right arms up and staring at a 2cm square screen. I would have thought it easier for the Police to get the local mobile phone repeater towers switched off for a while than to stuff them permanently with some massive E.M.P. burst.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >At the end of the day all this is tempered by the actual situation on the ground. If the Police decide they really need to shut something down then they will just go for it, and they will smash the press too. Just look at recent events in Russia. Or worse Zimbabwe...</p>

<p > </p>

<p >I think if you can't buy film, you probably won't be able to get processing either. Possible even food. I know what would worry me more. I think photography is important. There needs to be a record of what goes on.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >BTW Cliff, can you provide a link to the posting you mention about small folders from a few weeks ago ?</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Peter</p>

<p > </p>

 

[cliffmanley]

<p>Peter,<br>

Thank you for your post. You are right on track.<br>

You said <strong>"I think the singular emphasis on what photo equipment you should use is dangerous."</strong> The reason I mentioned small folders is to keep the message "classic cameras" Certainly anything may be used, but small medium format is the best to enlarge for details later, and film is not suseptable to anything but x-ray. Once developed, it is history. I also mentioned to stock up on developer and fixer, because you're right, the processing is not going to be avail either.<br>

About the cell phones, according to a Washington Post article, the police are trying to get to use the military technology and are asking for permission right now to be able to jam cell phone and other communications without a special court order. I can tell you right now, they will get it.<br>

<br /><strong>Washington Post<br />February 1, 2009</strong><br>

<strong>"As President Obama’s motorcade rolled down Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day, federal authorities deployed a closely held law enforcement tool: equipment that can jam cell phones and other wireless devices, sources said. It is an increasingly common technology, with federal agencies expanding its use as state and local agencies are pushing for permission to do the same.But jamming remains strictly illegal for state and local agencies. Federal officials barely acknowledge that they use it inside the United States, and the few federal agencies that can jam signals usually must seek a legal waiver first. "</strong></p>

<p> If they are given this power on a local level, things will get ugly much quicker.</p>

[patrick j dempsey]

<p>I was in a hurricane once in Alabama and the cell tower got knocked out. We had no electricity and no cell phones for two weeks, but buried telephone lines still worked. Being one of the few houses with a REAL telephone meant we could only call a very few people, and most people simply had no way to call anyone. It really is amazing how quickly people have adopted the new telenology without thinking. It's comical to me when people talk about having a cell phone makes them feel safe if there is an emergency... but their are tons of emergencies were they don't work. </p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Do-de-doo-doo,</p>

<p>but so far as Patrick's point. For much of the world the cell technology was the first time they were able to have decent telephone service, period. When I was in Cairo after the October War in 73, it took hours to call from downtown to the airport. Last year, even the camel herders were all carrying what the Germans so aptly call "handys".</p>

[mark_brown14]

<p>In 1935 Roman Vishniac started taking photos of East European Jews, using a Rolleiflex and a Leica, often surreptitiously, through a buttonhole in his coat, in spite of the danger of being arrested as a spy. His collection of negatives forms one of the few extensive archives of European Jewish life in existence.<br>

One lesson for anyone worried about current developments would be to start documenting early, and pay no attention to those who say things could never get that bad.<br>

A major consideration, once the photos were taken and developed, was smuggling the negatives out of occupied Europe. This is where it would help (today) to keep your scanner, so negatives can be digitized and transmitted across borders with impunity (once the signal's back up, of course).</p>

[Dustin McAmera]

Returning to the sidetrack this thread took a while back, </br></br>

 

http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=1104

[cliffmanley]

<p><strong><em>The union is joining with campaigners to organize a mass picture taking session outside London’s police HQ on Monday 16 February the day the act becomes law. The photo taking will start at 11 AM outside New Scotland Yard on Broadway, London. Photojournalist and NUJ member Marc Vallée said: The plan is simple, turn up with your camera and exercise your democratic right to take a photograph in a public place.</em></strong></p>

<p>I sure hope someone with a small hidden camera at the sidelines photographs the cops gassing and arresting the photographers. You know they will want to set a precedent for their new law. My guess is that they will arrest everyone in the crowd and book them and give them a permanent record. They will broadcast the results of their tyrannical victory through the media, then later release the photographers with a strict warning and a new record on file.</p>

[gt1]

<p>This is so messed up.</p>