Bad times for Photographers in NYC

[HOUSCOUS]

I read this from other place. So, no tripod, huh? I guess I need to carry many many many of sand bags now.

[Steelsun]

Informal meetups (photowalks, flickr, photo mobs, etc) will also be severly impacted.

[PeteQ]

And what about the paparazzi gatherings? 50+ pros hanging out for hours waiting for a shot. Surely that will strike a nerve. It will be interesting now that Bloomberg wants to be President. His locals and tourists won't take kindly to being pushed around indiscriminately for taking pictures of Times Square....

[Duffy Pratt]

Just read the rules. If there are less than 5 people involved, it looks like you could still use the tripod for up to 30 minutes. To get entirely around the restrictions, just make up a t-shirt that says you are protesting the permit requirements. The requirements have an exception for protests. So, by protesting the requirements, you thereby get out of them. (Only problem with this idea is trying to explain it to the police.)

When I was a film student in NY, I dealt some with the permit office. Typically, for street shooting of movies, with minimal equipment (tripod or dolly, but no lights to speak of), we wouldn't bother with a permit, and it was never that big a deal. But for some locations, if you were going to be there a while, you really needed a permit -- like subway stations, anything in Central Park (though not Riverside Park or some of the smaller ones), and probably for any really extended time period on a busy street.

Duffy

[boomerd35]

Originally Posted by Duffy Pratt

(Only problem with this idea is trying to explain it to the police.)

You can't explain anything to the police. They already know it all.

Originally Posted by Duffy Pratt

When I was a film student in NY, I dealt some with the permit office.

Film student in NY? Man, that sounds like fun!(except for Riverside- that sounds dangerous ) There's an atmosphere in NYC that you just don't get anywhere else.

[Duffy Pratt]

It was fun. And I actually learned some stuff too. it was much more fun than Hollywood.

Riverside Park, at least from 80th to 116th Streets, was not particularly dangerous. The Inwood Parks and the Cloisters, which were near where I lived, were also pretty safe -- much safer than Central Park in the 1980s. The most dangerous thing I used to do, was ride my bike down from 195th Street, through Spanish Harlem and Harlem proper, to Columbia and Central Park.

And then, toward the end of my time there, the drug dealers had all moved out of the lower East Side, where they had been for years, and up to Washington Heights near the George Washington Bridge. The migration led to turf wars, and my neighborhood went from being lower middle class and safe, to the area with the highest murder rate in the country.

Duffy

[Gleep]

The permit part sounds like a pain for sure but what sticks in my mind is the insurance. Anyone have a clue how much that would cost?
Another aspect of this is how quickly will other municipalities (big and small) jump on the bandwagon.

[kb5kjn]

Another one

Thirty minutes into the commotion, a woman was lying on the sidewalk being treated by paramedics, and a news photographer snapped a single photograph before being immediately told to stop by the police. Another photographer, Julia Xanthos from the Daily News, entered the scene, was told by the same officer to stop taking photos, and responded by displaying her working press credentials. In the next moments, she was handcuffed by Officer John Evans of the Ninth Precinct and placed under arrest.

Full link.

[kb5kjn]

And another

IMPD officials say law enforcement is concerned about pictures of federal office buildings, military installations, major bridges and other infrastructure that could be considered a terrorists target.

If in doubt, police say, tourists should confine their photographs to marked tourists spots.

Full Link

[brad]

The first one sounds like an overzealous officer.. its rotten, but it happens.. and it gives the hundreds of thousands of officers who do a good job day in and day out a bad name. (I hope it was explained to that officer just how wrong he was by his superior.)

The second one...

Miller was allowed to take his pictures and leave after questioning. Now he's questioning if his civil rights were violated.

Umm.. no. The police have always had the right to stop and ask anyone questions about what they are doing without explaining themselves. It doesn't become a violation of civil rights until it becomes harassment or some other step is taken by the officers (confiscating the camera, deleting pictures, making a false arrest, etc.).

It is our responsibility as citizens, who are also just as interested in avoiding a terrorist attack, to not interfere with the officers that are trying to do the same... and to cooperate with them when reasonably asked to do so.

I don't see anything in that second article that implies the officers threatened any action against the photographer.. they simply asked what he was doing and (erroneously) told him that he couldn't take pictures of a public building.

[kb5kjn]

He said, 'I need to see it, for matters of homeland security. You can't be taking pictures around here,'" Miller recalled the officer saying to him hours after the race.

Then they need to arrest him or get a search warrant. They can not just demand to see in your bag or camera.
A judge is not going to grant a search order under these conditions.
They have no grounds to arrest him.
So the used coercion to look at his images and that is something they can not do.

According to IMPD, pictures of certain government facilities are off limits.

Court houses are not, certain parts of military bases are.

If in doubt, police say, tourists should confine their photographs to marked tourists spots.

This is the crux of it all. Photograph what we want you to... Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

I do not want it to turn into a political rant so I will stop it here.