"Oh, You Know a Lot About Cameras"

Ordinarily I wouldn't put up a picture this crappy --the light was terrible-- but this one comes with a nice story.  I'll try to be brief.

I was approaching 9th Avenue along 40th Street on my way to the Hell's Kitchen Flea Market over the weekend.  Never one to pass up an oddity, I stopped, took the picture, and continued on.

"Sir!  Sir!"  I hear.  The building behind the license plate is the Port Authority Bus Terminal.  A Port Authority police officer saw me taking the photo and wanted to talk.  He asked me what I was taking a picture of and why.  I explained that I'm an amateur photographer and liked taking pictures of weird sights and an Oklahoma license plate being displayed like this struck me as weird.  He said I shouldn't be nervous ("I know you're not a terrorist"), he was just interested in photography and why people take the pictures that they take. 

He asked me about my camera and its resolution.  I took the camera out of my pocket and showed him that it was a D70 S70, the 70 being for 7.0 megapixels.  To which he said "Oh, you know a lot about cameras.  So you're more than an amateur."  I assured him that I was not.

Now, the Port Authority has every right to be vigilant around their facilities.  Afterall, the World Trade Center belongs to the PA and a lot of their employees were killed on September 11th.  However, since he said that I wasn't causing any problems, and we were talking about photography, I asked him if it wasn't okay to take photos when you're on public property.  He replied, "Don't go that route.  I don't want to put you on the terrorism watch list."  I assured him that I wasn't trying to cause any trouble, but my understanding was that there are no restrictions to photography in public space.  Again he avoided answering my question, and started talking about the Patriot Act and suggesting again that I "really don't want to go that route".  At that point I gave up and walked away. 

It is an interesting strategy.  The PA wants to discourage photography but can't legally prevent someone on public property from taking pictures.  They could be straightforward and request that people not take pictures, but that's not authoritative.  Instead they use this weird passive-aggressive harrassment where they imply you shouldn't be taking pictures, even if they are innocuous, but carefully don't actually say you can't take pictures (because doing so would be illegal on their part).

For the record, according to Bert P. Krages, an attorney who is the author of The Photographer’s Right – A Downloadable Flyer, the Patriot Act contains no provisions restricting photography.

Anyway, that's how ten minutes of my Saturday was wasted.  Here are a couple of photos from the flea market:

Comments

[tien]

i thought you had the s70...?

interesting converstaion none the less.

[Joe]

Whoops, yes I have the s70.

[isabel]

so, did you get anything at the flea market?

[Joe]

No. I was looking for a clear glass vase but didn't see any I liked.

[Jessica]

I so covet that file cabinet thing. But not that best-offense-is-an-ignorance-defense moment. Shudder.

[joe]

The file cabinets were massive! There were two of them and they were each 4 feet square.

[sofi]

Thanks for mentioning Hell's Kitchen Flea Market and putting up pictures on your page! Your site is awesome. We have a profile on FleaSpeech.com that you should check it out if you get a chance! Thanks again.

--Sofi, FleaSpeech