Permit to Shoot in Downtown Houston?

[newtune3]

As organizer of our local photo meetup group, I ran a poll to see where the group wanted to shoot next. Downtown Houston was the pick. Then one of our pro members told me that we should be prepared to be stopped by HPD or Metro Police as she understood that a permit was needed to shoot in downtown Houston. Have any of you heard about this? I was blown away. Has it come to this? She told me that she had inqured about this permit and would post to our site when and if she knew something more. Have any of you heard of this? Please let me know what you know.

[newtune3]

bump

[TxLerman]

I thought the permit was only necessary if you are shooting commercial photography on city property. I do not think that you need a permit just to walk around downtown and take pictures. I work downtown and have taken pictures near the metrorail and never had a cop stop me before even though I was in plain sight.

If you did need a permit just to take pictures, then the think of all the tourists they could fine with their point and shoots.

David

[Steelsun]

Only required for commercial use.

Do a search for the Trash The Dress (TTD) event we had in Houston late last year. This was discussed there and it went off fine.

You need one if you want to reserve a park for your use only.

But caution: They are trying to change the rules. See the recent thread by CobyPhoto.

[newtune3]

Thanks for the insight. It seems that our pro had issue with photographing a metro rail train. We will give it a try but I am not likely to use a tripod or attract any undo attention. It is getting more scary by the day.

[dbphotos]

They can stop and talk to you but if you are in a public place they can't stop you from taking photos. You may have to put up with a little grief, but it's likely no one will stop and talk with you at all.

[newtune3]

We decided that the safe thing to do was to shoot in Hermann Park. Too many tourist there for them to mess with. We will try a small group to go downtown and shoot at a leter date.