They did not jail me but...

[Hanky]

I'm still in a funk about ruining my D200 last night but I have been planning on a D300 upgrade so this morning I went to Competitive camera and bought it. If you are familier with the area there is a gold mine of buildings, graffiti etc. So I'm tootin around bustin some caps and I see this closed in basketball court on the 3'rd story of about a 12 story building. How cool I tell myself envious of extravigant lifestyles, the jeep is pulled over and I bang away. Turns out I am behind the old Beatles hotel that they converted to a county jail and I attracted a deputie's attention. Eventually I had six officers there and my DL run through the database. They let me go after I formatted card and agreed to vamoose however now my name is on a list. Needless to say next TPF gettogeather on top of the jail garage I will be passing on. In fact I'm a little paranoid now and will go back to birds and other subjects. We have rights and all but when I deal with law enforcement I do whatever they want regardless of how I feel.

[KJ Smith]

If I remember right, the floor the court is on is vacant, the three floors above it are female floors. The women on those floors like to flash the men playing ball.

There used to be a guy that worked the loading dock across the street. He would spend his lunch time, with a pair of binoculars.

But as a general rule, they are just protecting the privacy of the people who are staying there.

Kevin

[Hanky]

The officer mentioned to me something about escape planning and 9-11 so he may have been a jailer.

[TxLerman]

Inmates have a right to privacy? Sheesh..what is this world coming to??

[JPalmer]

If you really liked the photos.... the PhotoRescue program does a fantastic job of pulling files that have been "formatted" from a card.

You'd be suprised to see how far back data that isn't there.... actually is there.

[johnastovall]

They had no right to get you to format your card.

[Steelsun]

Lots of bs passed out by those deputies. They cannot forbid taking pics of a jail.

[Concisus Cognatus]

Hehehe...I know how you felt. Wrong or right, they have the advantage

[KJ Smith]

Originally Posted by TxLerman

Inmates have a right to privacy? Sheesh..what is this world coming to??

That particular facility houses some people who can not afford bail.

They have not been convicted of any crimes and may in fact be innocent.

Kevin

[Hanky]

Originally Posted by JPalmer

If you really liked the photos.... the PhotoRescue program does a fantastic job of pulling files that have been "formatted" from a card.

You'd be suprised to see how far back data that isn't there.... actually is there.

John, I offered to format the card and they may have let me go without doing so but they did insist on watching me do it.
LOL Jason, I retreived them however I kept my word to the dep. and deleted the jail shots.
Sandisk gaves out a mini cd w/recov. software with the xtreme 3 card.
There were some grafiti shots that required standing on the front of my jeep that I did not want to lose plus they were the first from the new D300.
This all begs the question however what about Google street view?

[D. Jay]

that sucks man..

[dbphotos]

Bottom line you have the right to shoot whatever you want if you are standing in a public place and the "occupants" of the jail have no expectation of privacy (which only applies to Law Enforcment officials anyway). The jailers had no right to compell you to format your card, or to leave, except that they could make your life miserable short term, so leaving is generally the smart thing to do. I would never format my card, but since you did, as Jason stated, it's easy to recover with one of several recovery programs. If you have any Sandisk Extreme CF a recovery disk should have come with it.

Don't let this stop you from shooting in public places.

(This comes from my 14 years of LE experience.)

[billseye]

I've often wondered if I got snookered the time I was trying to set up for a shot of a sunset combining the reflecting off of a lake and a mirrored hirise. I don't know if I could have pulled it off because "Barney Fife" in the company golf cart came around and said that it was unlawfull to photograph the building because of copyright laws. I thought it was probably boggus, but I was pretty green at shooting in public back then. I just moved to another spot. I got the sunset, but no reflection.

[SCone]

I'd be more concerend with a jail break anytime in the future???

[pziasd]

You know...it never hurts to do some advance reconnaissance prior to going on a shoot for business or pleasure that way stuff like this could be avoided. Always carry a backup camera, for me is my trusty Casio EX-S600. They're less likely to give you grief when they see a consumer camera as opposed to a 'pro' camera. Unfortunately, most people that see us with a white Canon lens thinks we're pros.