[LargeFormat] Chicago...tripods and the law

[LNPhoto]

On Thursday, February 19, 2004, at 12:11  PM, Brock Nanson wrote:

> On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Joseph O'Neil wrote:
>
>> At 09:13 2/19/04 -0500, you wrote:
>>> Naaa,
>>>
>>> Different days, different people.  A lot of your woes come would 
>>> come from
>>> misguided and ignorant passerby's that go call 911 because they see 
>>> someone
>>> with a camera on a tripod shooting the towns water reservoir.   You 
>>> must be
>>> up to no good, if not, why are you hiding under that black hood??
>>
>>
>> -snip-
>>
>>          Actually, now that the subject has been broched, I ahve been 
>> an
>> amatuer astornomer for over 20years now, and our local astornomy club 
>> has a
>> million and one tales of the police comming to investiage "hodlums,
>> terriorts" and more.
>>
>>          Remember - we are outside at NIGHTTIME with strange 
>> intruments on
>> a tripods - and if you guys think you have it bad, I can tell you - 
>> God's
>> honest truth - long before 9-11, we have had it worse.   My favourite 
>> local
>> story is a group of my friends who had the provincial police decend 
>> on them
>> en masse one night, because a passing motorist phoned in on thier 
>> cell a
>> report of a "bunch fo holdums witha stolen hot water heater in the 
>> middle
>> of a corn feild"    Don't ask, I dunno either.
>>
>>          Then there was the guy from nothern Ontario  who setup in a 
>> feild,
>> apparently too close to a military base here in Canada late one 
>> night.   As
>> bad as some of you have had it with police, how many of you have had
>> soldiers level a machine gun at you, demanding to know what you are 
>> doing?
>>
>>          there's a thousand more such stories in amatuer astronomy, so
>> don't feel that you are alone ro singled out.  For what it is worth,
>> amatuer astornomers have been putting up with such attitudes since 
>> before
>> WW2,a nd some reports i have read, even before WW1 - after all, you 
>> ahve to
>> be some sort of "weirdo" to setup an optical instrument ona  tripod 
>> late at
>> night, by yourself, ina  dark feild with no lights around.   Can we 
>> assume
>> Ansel Adams had a bit freer reign at the same time period?
>>
>>          so, count yourselves lucky, there are those who have it 
>> worse.
>
> And then there was this guy by the name of Galileo who really pi$$ed of
> the establishment with his telescope...
>
> What national parks in Canada have the US-ish Draconian laws about
> professional photographers?  I've never heard of such a thing here 'out
> west', but then we tend to be outlaws, laughing regularly in the face 
> of
> authority...
>
> It never fails to amuse me that the 'security' people make such a big 
> deal
> about photography in plain view.  With the advent of cell phones with
> integral cameras, small digital cameras etc, who but a freakin' idiot
> would try to gather 'intelligence' with a big camera???  Certainly no 
> one
> with the wherewithall to build an explosive device or hijack and crash 
> a
> plane.  Security in airports is always good for a laugh.  One week you
> need to boot your laptop, the next the explosive swab is all that's
> needed.  Same thing with cameras.  New procedures, each as inane as the
> previous one.  Should someone tell them that you could put explosive in
> the film cartidge area of a 35mm camera and still see through the lens?
> That you can boot a laptop with a USB or Compact Flash device and fill 
> the
> drive bay with something nasty?  When I travel by air, the only 
> feeling of
> security I have is knowing that there are a whole bunch of planes in 
> the
> air at any given time, and the odds that mine is the one with the bad 
> guy
> aboard is fairly low.  The poorly educated staff at the security
> checkpoints don't exactly leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling.
>
> Just to bring this back on topic, has anyone every had security 
> question a
> view camera?  It's fairly time consuming to set it up with a lense to
> prove its actual purpose.  Not exactly as simple as taking the lens 
> cap of
> your Nikon and letting them play with the AF...
>
> -- 
> Brock Nanson
> Kamloops BC Canada
>
>

Not the camera, but lenses.  I went out to Idaho a couple of years ago 
and shipped the 5x7 film and the camera out ahead of time  (I just 
couldn't see me getting anywhere with two 100 sheet boxes of exposed 
film, saying...."No you can't xray it, no you can look inside, and yes 
I do want to bring this on the plane)  but I did bring my Protar 
C-set...4 nice brass cylindrical objects inside a nice wood box.  I 
also brought a 13" 5.6 Cooke.  Again Nice big cyclindrical object....

I got hit every time It went through the flouroscope.   The procedure 
varied from "Tell me where it is, I have to retrieve it"  to  "show me 
what's inside".
Other than giving them the once over, and then checking my toes for 
fungus, I didn't have a real problem.  But next time I fly with lenses, 
I'm wearing sandals.