LA Times article on photography

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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Patt Morrison: Tourist Photos? Get Me Security!
Taking pictures of public spaces is becoming illegal in downtown L.A.
July 20, 2006

IT WAS the talking building that finally did it for Will Funk.

His photography students had been trudging through downtown Los Angeles — in from Claremont, you know, taking in the big-city sights — and they were walking near 7th and Figueroa — walking, mind you, not even pausing, much less taking pictures — when a voice came out of a wall.

“Put away the camera. No picture taking here.”

Funk, a retired cop turned photographer, had been threatened with arrest before, under a law no one could name, for trying to take a picture of the Federal Building in Santa Ana. It took a call to his congressman to get that settled. But a building saying back off?

One by one, like pixels in an image, incidents assemble and a pattern appears. Someone takes a picture, or tries to, of a public space, in a public place. Muscle appears. Sometimes badges are flashed. Vague laws are vaguely invoked.

A man taking pictures of a symmetrical array of school buses gets a visit from Homeland Security. A shutterbug shooting 16-millimeter film of the scenery outside the train window is questioned, and the film is confiscated. A history student taking photos of the New York state Capitol for her class project finds the police at her door. Another student in Seattle, photographing a popular tourist sight, is corralled by men declaring themselves to be “homeland security.” A Texas railroad buff takes pictures of trains and gets grilled for five hours by the FBI and the cops.

To the absurdities of overreaching “no-fly” lists that keep infants off airplanes, add this one: photographers, amateur and professional, being menaced for taking pictures of public sights in plain sight.

In the online photo magazine Vivid Light Photography, Jim McGee writes about photographer-cop encounters and "wild tales about ‘made-up’ laws that cops pull out of the air t

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The fear of some one taking pictures of something is getting out of hand. It will not improve security. I did a internet seach for photos of some of the things mentioned and the got over a dozen hits on each one. ( I expect the FBI to crash though my door now) Why worry about peaple taking pictures now, the damage has been allready done and posted on the internet. We are becoming a country of frighten peaple.

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I was in San Diago last week with my photographing trains at the station in downtown and no one ever questioned me, I a security guard walked by as a snapped a photo of an amtrak F59 and he siad nothing.
Then when I was touring the USS Midway I took pictures of the aircraft carriers across the bay and still no one took notice. Thne while in LA on my way home I took dozens of photos on the platform while waiting to board the coast starlight and still no one cared, exept the securty guard that siad “Dont go on the track like some railfans do”. Since 9-11 I have never ever been asked what are you doing or told go away. So I guess I am just lucky

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Many of the downtown L.A. buildings have always been a bit on the paranoid side… Even well before 9/11. Truth be told, some of the biggest lawyers and business people in the world are working in those buildings, and they aren’t exactly great at making friends. They demand a certain level of security from the building owners, and since the people asking are usually multi-floor world renown legal firms, they tend to listen. Most large buildings are built in a plaza style now days, which usually takes up at least one block. Cities typically require the building to put a certain amount of work into the surrounding streets on their block when they build the building. All these things combined mean that the concept of ‘public sidewalk’ is very blurred now. The building owners tend to now have the attitude that basically anything they developed is theirs, and that means right to the curb. Sometimes well past the curb, if they helped redevelop the street as well. I once took a photo from the curb lane of what was then the Wells Fargo towers, which was one of the first full block developments downtown. The security came rushing out and told me I couldn’t do that. The same building they mention with the stairs in the article, also has a small street running behind it… This street was completely redone on their dime when they built the building… I tried to park my car there once and was told I couldn’t. I asked the guard if he thought they owned the street too… To my surprise, he said: “Yes”. That’s not true, but because they spent the money to redevelop it, and also rebuilt it in style of the building, that makes them think they own it. Dave http://www.dpdproductions.com - Featuring the TrainTenna Railroad Radio Antennas -