The War on Photographers

[bmattock]

For anyone interested, there is an article in the July 2006 issue of Popular Photography, written by Neal Matthews, called "The War on Photographers," which is pretty well-written and deals with many of the issues we've been discussing here on and off for the past year or so. Some of the arrests and 'hassles' we've heard about already - others are news to me. It's a fairly long article, and it is not yet online that I could find. If you are interested in this sort of thing, you might want to pick up a copy of the magazine.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[bsdunek]

The War on Photographers

Thanks for the heads up, Bill. I haven't received my July issue yet, but if you have yours, I'll probably get mine tomorrow.

I have heard of quite a few cases where photographers have been attacked by over zeleous police, due to the terror problem.

Love your Avator for this! 😎

Added 06/13/06:

Just got my PopPhoto yesterday so I could read the artical. I agree with dmr in this is mostly a reporting of incidents. It would be nice to know better how to deal with this problem of over-zelous authorities. I'm sure they mean well, but need more education.

An encounter could certainly ruin my day, or a vacation, just for pointing my camera in the wrong (according to someone ... ) direction. We do need to know what is right though, and stand up for it. If we don't we won't be able to take photos of anything.

 

[dmr]

I read that over the weekend. (Yes, I do buy and read that mag.)

Unfortunately the article seems to concentrate on defining the problem from an "ain't it awful!" perspective and says little on practical real-world remedies.

"Know your rights" seems to be what it says. Well, I think that most of us know our rights, but we don't know how to effectively assert our rights when they have been violated.

An angle I wish they had covered might be an interview with a police chief or even beat officer who has dealt with these cases.

I really wish it (or something) would cover the topic of how to deal with an officer when confronted -- like how to let him/her know that you know your rights while carefully avoiding an escalation of the incident.