Everyone Loves a Photographer

I fear that since the time when Garry Winogrand captured an entire generation on film, changing attitudes toward property and privacy, combined with a lot of jerks with cameras, have spoiled my chances of doing the same (“photographers held for questioning on role in death of Princess Diana…”). It’s not that I have a goal of chronicling life in this era, but if I did, I fear that I’d face frustrations Winogrand never dreamed of.

For example, the free-love enthusiasts welcomed him in their midst as he documented their effort to completely redefine sexual behavior for society. Those days are gone. Recently I was standing atop the bluff looking several hundred feet down to Baker Beach, where crowds of nude men hang out. My wife was looking through a 200 mm lens (telephoto, but certainly no telescope) at the rocky beach when a guy approached rather aggressively, barking about how would she like it if she were nude and someone was taking pictures of her without her knowledge. She replied that she was neither taking pictures nor examining the nude men.

Excuse me, I said, showing my even longer lens, and offered that I did enjoy photographing those nude men. He went on, more aggressively, about invasion of privacy for quite a while. Finally I cut him off and asked if he really thought nude men, who had territorially usurped the city’s most beautiful public beach, could reasonably expect privacy. The body is a beautiful thing, I said, to wind him up further, not explaining that even with my 300mm lens, the faces of these shy nudes were too small to be recognizable at that distance. I offered to disrobe so he could take my picture, figuring that would square things up in a symmetrical nude photography sort of way. He turned and left. I wondered if the thought of my nudity revolted him. Or maybe he just didn’t have a camera.

One night Laura and I set up tripods at Market and Embarcadero to shoot some night shots of the trolleys. The skateboard and trick bike crowds, mostly friendly, occasionally include some 30-year old teenage losers, in from the suburbs to be part of the magic. One of them very intentionally just grazed Laura’s tripod. I confronted him about it, resting my large tripod on my shoulder. “Some people need to know they gotta watch out for us,” he said, claiming his territory. “Yeah, other people might need to watch out for flying tripods,” I suggested, lifting mine just a bit. “That’s not cool, man.” His friends resented the sudden loss of all that skateboard manhood and stood up, then started walking toward me showing their scariest skate faces. I pointed to the police car parked a block away. They looked, and then walked away, leaving us with the trick bike dudes, a much happier group.

A few months later I walked through that area, noticing two young girls, one with a video camera. She was sobbing, and an angry young man with a skateboard was in her face. As I approached up the young man left. She confirmed that they were hassling her about filming without their permission, demanding that she turn over the video tape. I called SFPD and asked them if they knew this sort of thing occurred fairly often down there. They showed up pretty quickly and I explained the situation. I learned from the officer that famous skateboarder Tony Hawk had shot some video there, and now every kid with a board was waiting to hit it big in the skateboard video world. I told him about my previous encounter and we discussed the issue of reasonable expectation of privacy. He said he’d patrol the area more frequently, and I saw him there a couple days later. How ‘bout that – an amateur photographer and the law working together to improve urban life just a bit.

Rental cops are another matter. To get a night shot of San Francisco’s Coit Tower, I parked on the Embarcadero and set up a tripod in what I thought was a small public park. A short time later a uniformed guard popped out of a fancy office building yelling that I can’t take pictures here. He explained that this was private property on which the owning firm allowed limited public access, but that photography was off limits. My telephoto lens, mind you, was aimed at about 90 degrees from the office building, now completely dark except for the lobby where this guard was on duty. OK I said, How about if I back up fifty feet over to that public sidewalk and aim my big zoom lens (it was a fixed lens, but it seems most people think zoom means long) into your lobby and shoot photos of you at your desk all night. Perhaps sharper than many, he replied that night photography through windows into private structures was illegal. It is only if there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as when you are in your home, I said. When you sit at a desk beneath a welcome sign behind floor-to-ceiling windows you are in the public domain (I’m not really sure I was correct on that point). He sighed and explained that he was just doing what they tell him to do. I said I was sorry and that I’m a bit defensive because I get hassled so often for using a big lens. “Shooting the tower?” he asked. “Yep, take a look,” I replied. “Wow… Go ahead and shoot. What the hay,” he said.

When a friend and I went to get some night shots of City Hall, we barely had our tripod legs extended when a guard rushed out with some apparent urgency shouting that photography of City Hall required a permit. “I’m on a public sidewalk, I pleaded.” We were on the Van Ness Avenue sidewalk, not even on the walkway to City Hall. “You can’t do that here!” he barked. “Bullshit,” I barked back, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.” I went on with the “this is America” routine, orchestrated with 1^st Amendment, of-the-people-by-the-people, etc. He wouldn’t hear of it, and stepped closer. “Touch me, and it’s assault,” I said. I asked him to cite the relevant ordinance. He couldn’t of course, because there is none. “Let’s call the real police and get their opinion,” I suggested. He readily agreed. Hmm, I thought – no flavor quite so bitter as the taste of one’s own shoe. Or was he bluffing? We left, and I’m not sure how this might have played out. SFPD has always seemed like a class act to me, especially given my run-in with the skaters, but I’ve since heard some maddening encounters between photographers and police in public spots in LA, Boston and New York. In fact I was once told by a cop in Boston that I couldn’t use a tripod in Boston Common.

I went back the next night and set my tripod in the median of Van Ness and got my shot without incident. There may be a lesson here regarding the relative value of being right and being patient. Nevertheless, I’m seeing Benjamin Franklin frown: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

What is behind all this? In some case, like LA, the answer to this question is probably money. Photography there is so associated with Hollywood that John Law assumes you’re a permit-dodging motion picture wannabe. For Long Beach Harbor and the BP refinery, it is likely tied to their generally accurate view that all press about refineries is bad. They assume we’re recording their emissions for yet another exposé on big oil, and BP has enough clout to affect law enforcement. Given the history of  police corruption in Boston, the officer there might simply be seeking some moonlighting income in the form of a bribe. In the case of San Francisco’s City Hall, the security guard seems likely to have been completely out of step with the city government, feeling the power of his rental cop badge.

That rental cop badges contain testosterone charges is certainly obvious at a few buildings in San Francisco where amateur photographers are regularly hassled by ill-mannered security men. Thomas Hawk has documented a bunch of such experiences on his blog. My encounters have been less exciting that his, but I can attest to the validity of his reports. If you haven’t had the pleasure of being threatened by a corporate security guard, show your SLR in front of 50 Beale, 45 Fremont or 555 California and watch the fun begin.

My wife handles encounters with uniformed guards much better than I do.  A few years ago in Pompeii, I noted the numerous “No Flash” (some of them reading “No Flesh”) warnings at the better preserved wall paintings that remain in situ. That a flash could damage the paintings is plausible, and I’d never do anything I thought might do damage there. So I whipped out a tiny tripod, mounted the camera, and snapped a few shots. A guard happened by, informing me in good English that I was breaking the law, and could be fined or worse. Tripods, on state property in Italy, indicate commercial photography, he said, and that requires a permit. I suggested – politely and humbly this time – that it might be a good idea to let people know this, especially since dozens of signs clearly warned against flash but didn’t mention tripods. I’m tempted, at times like this in a foreign country, to mentally compare my government back home to the infuriatingly unjust system of the place I’m visiting; but then I remembered my tripod problem in Boston. Despite my effort at diplomacy, the Pompeii guard took my suggestion that they not keep the rules secret as an affront. No doubt these guys deal with some belligerant twits with cameras. Considering that he was a federal employee, and recalling anecdotes about the limited due process in Italy, I turned the back of camera toward him, displaying the offending photo and offered to delete it. Laura intervened, in excellent Italian, saying in a quiet but you-should-be-ashamed sort of voice that I did have a pretty good point about the signage. He shrugged his shoulders and spoke for quite a while in Italian. The only part I understood was his saying that he’d pretend he didn’t see it. I gathered that Laura was then explaining how much we liked ancient Rome and Pompeii 2^nd style painting in particular. We were soon with the guard behind the fence separating tourists from the good stuff, discussing the fine points of 1^st century iconography. In my experience, a guard with even a passing interest in the material he guarded was a rare thing; but here we were on an essentially private tour in Pompeii, chatting up a security guard about the validity of 19^th century interpretations of certain images as Dionysiac initiation rites. Italy is a strange and beautiful place.

In fact, on more recent trips to Rome and vicinity, I’ve had several encounters with kind and thoughtful museum guards. One showed me where I could use a table top as a makeshift tripod to capture Nero in a dark room. Another let me stay in a gallery after closing time so I could shoot a large sculpture group without it being obscured by tourists. In Naples, a fellow let us into a closed gallery for an hour, discussing bronze portraiture with us the whole while. Italy has been overwhelmingly positive experiences, but for one noted exception.

Ostia Antica seems to select their museum staff on the basis of ability to give flippant answers to the most innocent of questions (what time does the museum close today), to chain-smoke, for the battery life of their mobile phones, and for their skill at shooing paying visitors out of the museum about an hour before closing time. My first trip to the Ostia museum followed three weeks of museum visits in Naples and Rome, where everyplace I went allowed the use of a camera. I truly did not notice the sign in the Ostia museum prohibiting photography. I went in and shot up all the sculpture I was interested in, taking my time about it, and, because all the guards were smoking while talking on their cell phones outside the doorway the entire time (the smoke drafts back into the  mseum and fills the exhibit rooms), they didn’t notice my offense. So I left Ostia, happy with my photos, not knowing that I wasn’t allowed to take them. Imagine my surprise when I returned the following year with a 5D around my neck, to be greeted by a stern warning of no photography. What happened, I asked, “I shot here last year.” Photography has never been allowed here, they said.

At this point I really only wanted a single photo of a marble portrait head for some research I was doing; I had gotten everything else I wanted on my earlier naïve trip. I asked to talk to the head of the museum, hoping he’d say ok to one academic photo. The guard responded as if I’d asked to see the pope. Maybe he thought I was going to report him for smoking in the doorway. The superintendent was not in that day. The guard gave me a phone number of the second in command, and a dirty look. I phoned, didn’t reach Number Two, but talked to his flunky, who ultimately intimated that my most cynical conjecture was valid – their bookstore might lose a sale if someone posted a good picture of one of their artifacts. This, I thought, was a casualty of 50 years of Italian socialism. I wondered if they had considered what a tiny fraction of their revenue came from their bookstore, that virtually none of those books are available outside of Italy, that the vast majority of their visitors were from outside Italy, and that there is ample evidence that advertising does in fact work. Photos on the web might actually bring more visitors in and offset that hypothetical loss of the sale of an overpriced 30 year old book with grainy, black and white photos in it.

I tried for a long time but failed to penetrate the archaeological beaurocracy. I stewed about it for a couple years, then returned to Ostia and did what any red-blooded tourist would do. I waited until all the guards were standing outside the doorway smoking, walked into the museum talking loudly to Laura about some football team – as if that was where my interest lay – turned a corner, continuing to babble on about nothing as we snagged a few shots of Gaius Volcacius Myropnus, then turned and exited through the smoke-filled doorway.