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Saturday, November 17, 2007

Altercations

I know time is flying when I look at the last Blog post and that was Tuesday, and I'm already almost to Sunday before I even start to think about writing the next one. Well I've thought about writing another but haven't had a moment to get any further than that....

Thursday I had Big Brothers Big Sisters, and I took my camera so that I could get pictures since we went to the "little's" school. I even had a mini photoshoot with my little, and she took my current facebook profile picture. It was great to share that with her, since usually we're concentrating on other things. After that I had to run to my rescheduled photo class.

Friday night I went with Scott to a first year grad school student party. The school gives them money to throw a party for the incoming students. We had a good time teaching these East Coast kids how to play King's Cup. Scott nearly got into an altercation with the police when we were walking to the subway, they asked him to step aside so he did, but not as far as they wanted him to. I dragged him far far away from them, not wanting to have anything bad happen. It's been in the news lately that the cops shot a teen boy armed only with a hairbrush. Understandable if the kid was threatening to shoot them, but they did fire 20 times. I certainly didn't want to take any chances.
From 2007.11.17

Saturday I got up and headed into the city for my last Saturday photography workshop. I sat at the front of the Path train to get some pictures of the tracks. I was looking out the window taking pictures when a lady conductor came up to me and told me that I was going to have to delete my pictures of the train. I tried to just put the camera away hoping that she'd see I wasn't trying to do anything bad, and she insisted that I delete them. I tried confuse her with a little bit of technical jargon about formatting cards and fragmentation and how I didn't want to lose my other pictures, but she was having none of it and went to call security. So I took my card out and stuck it in my camera bag, she came back and still insisted that I hadn't deleted anything and I couldn't delete things with my card out, so I reached into my bag and pulled out my other card that didn't have anything on it, and acted like I was going to delete stuff. It ended when I finally told her that I had "the utmost respect for her and her position" and that I certianly wasn't trying to do anything malicious. She finally seemed satisfied and walked away without ever seeing me delete anything. I think she must have just been on a crazy power trip, but I was shaking like a leaf. I am not a fan of confrontation. It was definitely more the principle of the thing. Taking a picture is harmless, the MTA subway system lets you take pictures all you want. I know, I looked up the rule and memorized that it is Article 1050 section C. Ha, it made me laugh that the lady was giving me this whole speech about how I couldn't take pictures because they wanted to preserve what little security they had. That didn't make sense to me at all, especially since the part of the tracks we were on could clearly be seen by walking alongside the tracks from a public sidewalk. I may have to write to the Path train people about getting that rule changed. It's really ridiculous and not worth me or anyone else having to be harrased over it. People who want to do harm won't get any more info from pictures they can take from a car since it's obvious that anyone can see everything that would be in that picture anyways.
From 2007.11.17

If that wasn't enough, I left the Path train and hopped on the subway, I saw an open door that I thought looked interesting and I took a picture. A maintenance man came up to me and asked if I was taking a picture. I said yes. He said I wasn't allowed to! I promptly recited the article and section where it said I could and he started yelling at me telling me that he didn't care that I couldn't take a picture back there etc. and to get on the train. Which I was happy to do since it pulled up just then. A sympathetic bystander asked if the guy was yelling at me for taking pictures and shook his head. That made me feel tons better since I was starting to feel really accosted.
From 2007.11.17

I mentioned my experience to my professor who has consistently told us that we are within our rights to do these kinds of things, which is true since we're in public spaces. A perfect teaching example came about when we were walking with him taking pictures and he stopped in the street to take a picture of the back of a hotdog vendor cooking at his cart. When the guy turned around and noticed he got crazy angry and got right in the teacher's face yelling and screaming that he was going to call the cops. So my teacher said ok, call the cops. So the man gets on his cell phone and finally out of my teacher's face and so my teacher took some more pictures of him! I think it was to prove a point, but it was a little antagonistic. By that time we were done there so we decided to move on and the guy kept walking with us for 5 or 6 blocks, staying on the phone with the cops who I assume were telling him that we were doing something perfectly legal. We finally ducked down into the subway to ditch the guy.
From 2007.11.17

Phew, I won't need any more confrontation for at least a year. I don't know what's so intimidating about a camera. I can understand someone asking nicely that you don't take a picture, like some construction workers did, then my professor talked to them and the guy that was waving us away started posing and getting his buddies to pose too. I'm more than happy to respect people's wishes, I just don't want to get yelled and screamed at. I think New York makes people a little crazy.

Trivia for the day: (I learned this in college) You have a greater chance of being killed by lightning than a terrorist.... which means people should stop freaking out about me taking pictures!

3 comments:

  1. Didn't you know that cameras steal soul? I know there is some culture that believes that anyway. Think of how many souls you now have trapped in that little box.

    ReplyDelete
  2. http://www.weddingphotographydirectory.com/wedding-photo/for-wedding-photographers/bleeding-edge-column/art-of-stealing-souls.aspx


    Here I found this link pretty interesting on the topic of soul stealing with a camera, I also found a site claiming that by taking their picture you are essentially making a voodoo doll to control them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Its better to ask forgivness than permission" Happens to us a - bagillion times. Luckily Chris isn't a push-over.

    But sometimes thats what it takes to get that one image...And knowing how to diffuse a situation is always helpful.

    ReplyDelete

Recap Defined

ri•cap 1 (rē-kāp') Pronunciation Key tr.v. ri•capped, ri•cap•ping, ri•caps
1. a summary at the end that repeats the substance of a longer discussion
2. To replace a cap or caplike covering on: recapped the camera lens.
3. Ri - a female given name: derived from Adrienne.