Ruthless and Willful Disregard

We are bad people.  Both Suzie and myself constantly ignore rules and laws when it comes to photography.  I have a saying about rules and laws:  Laws you don't mess with.  Those are things like gravity, momentum, inertia, and others.  You mess with those and you die.  Everything else falls into the rules category.  They are meant to be guidelines.

I don't know if it's a sign of the times or what, but there are security people everywhere these days--especially shopping malls.  Last night we were told by security that there is no picture-taking allowed in the mall unless you are shooting your child in one of the play areas.  What brought that on?  9-11?  Actual terrorist incidents in malls?  Do they not realize that everyone these days has a telephone with a camera on it and can take pictures anywhere undetected?

We're pretty sure they singled us out because we were walking the mall, shooting things with real cameras.

Will that make us stop?  No.  It will make us think twice about visiting that particular mall though, but then it never really offered much as far as shopping anyway, save for a couple of its anchor stores, and they have their own entrances.

As I said it's happened before.

I was shooting downtown Kent one day in a nice outdoor shopping center called Kent Station.  A security guard walked up to me and wondered what I was shooting and why.  After explaining I was just shooting people and scenes for my own use he let me proceed.  Apparently, they have "eyes in the sky" everywhere now.  I think we would be very shocked if we knew how many cameras were watching us on a daily basis.  I'm going to make it a point to always wave at security cameras when I see them from now on.  Maybe I'll even mimic taking their picture.

Both of us were shooting night scenes of Auburn's train station one night and a security guy came up and told us it was against the rules for us to be shooting from anywhere on the pedestrian bridge that spanned the tracks.  The thing is, the pedestrian bridge was the only place worth shooting from.  That was the reason for our visit.  No problem--We got our shots anyway if memory serves me.

Saturday we were shooting at an abandoned house and a kid (maybe 17 or so) came walking up and told me we had to leave.  They don't allow anyone on the property.  No problem.  We left.  Sure, it had NO TRESPASSING spray painted everywhere around the place, but who looks at that kind of stuff?  It just added character to the shot!  Besides, there were no doors, no fences, no outside signs, and convenient parking.

There have been several times when a merchant has told us no pictures were allowed.  Those are really the only ones I respect.  After all, they don't want someone copying some design of something they're selling, or maybe a particular way they're displaying their products.  It's a "protect your business" thing.

Things we have learned:

• Make sure the business next door to the abandoned house is closed.
• Don't leave the red car you drove to the abandoned house sitting there all my itself in plain sight.
• Don't spend too much time in one spot.  You'll give the cop that sits at the monitor screens time to finish his donut and come after you.  Grab and move on.
• Don't ask permission. If you ask for permission they will just say no.  You're opening yourself up for it.  If you shoot and move on, there is a 99% chance that you got your shot and left before anyone felt threatened.  The rule "you're better off asking for forgiveness than asking for permission" applies in the off chance that you'll actually be caught.

I doubt that we're ever going to change our ways.  Sooner or later someone might even get belligerent about getting them in a picture while walking on a public sidewalk.  Who knows.  We can't let stupid rules get in the way, right?

Out of my way man--This is PHOTOGRAPHY!