Photography is Not a Crime

Photo by Jordan Silverman of Seven Days

By Carlos Miller
A Vermont photographer who specializes in street photography in the spirit of Henri Cartier-Bresson has been barred from entering a shopping mall because of his candid shots.

However, Dan Scott said all his photographs were taken outside the mall on public property.

And there is no evidence he committed a crime.

Nevertheless, if he steps foot inside the Burlington Town Center or any of its 67 business establishments during the next year, he will be arrested. Even if he doesn’t have a camera with him.

Now the question is, how much power should private businesses have over somebody’s First Amendment rights?

Seven Days, an alternative newspaper in Vermont, does a good job on bringing the issue to light.

Scott, 32, is an art photographer from St. Albans who works full time at the U.S. Social Security Administration office on Pearl Street. For the last year or so, he’s spent many of his lunch hours shooting artsy, black-and-white photos of people on Church Street: homeless people, the elderly, families with children, anyone who catches his eye. He insists that all his photos are taken on public property, not inside stores or through the windows or blinds of private homes.

Occasionally, Scott asks his subjects’ permission to be photographed. “And if they tell me ‘no,’ I go away,” he says. However, he admits that much of the time, his pictures are candid shots taken from a distance with a telephoto lens so his subjects aren’t aware they’re being photographed.

Over the years, some of Scott’s photos have been published in local publications, including the Burlington Free Press and Seven Days. However, most are taken for fun, not for profit, he claims, as a way of developing his photography skills.

“Look, I’m not doing anything to try to embarrass people or demean them,” he says. “I’m just trying to capture the human condition as it presents itself in the marketplace.”

The problem started on January 26 when Scott was taking pictures outside the mall. A security guard told him he was not allowed to photograph the mall.

Scott informed the clueless guard that he, in fact, did have a right to take pictures from a public street, regardless of what happens to be in the background.

The mall’s manager told Seven Days that its no-photography policy applies only to the inside of the mall. I’m betting they really have no policy.

After the incident with the security guard, two Burlington cops began harassing him, asking him who he was, where he works and what he was doing there.

Considering he was not doing anything legally suspicious, he was under no obligation to answer these questions. But Scott was trying to be cooperative, which led to officers showing up at his office the following day.

The officer grilled him for 45 minutes, demanding to know who he photographs and what he does with his photos. Scott told the cop he posts them on Flickr.

“He thought that was just despicable,” Scott notes.

Unfortunately, Seven Days did not link to his Flickr site, which is a horrible habit it obtained from the mainstream media.

A month later, Scott snapped a photo of a woman smoking a cigarette outside a coffee shop. He was about 50 feet away. She asked him to stop taking photos. He did.

But when she demanded he delete the photo he had taken of her, he refused.

The following Monday, a Burlington cop showed up to his office and issued him a trespass order that banned him from the mall for a year.

Lieutenant Jen Morrison with the Burlington Police Department says she’s not at liberty to discuss the details of Scott’s trespass order, or even confirm that he was issued one. Oddly, it’s not because there’s a criminal investigation pending; Scott hasn’t been charged with a crime. Rather, she explains, it’s because the police don’t decide whether to issue trespass orders; they simply issue them at the behest of businesses and property owners.

Business owners  say the worst thing he did was snap photos of their customers without their consent.

Not very different from what business owners do with their surveillance cameras.

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By Carlos Miller
John Battelle, a respected journalist in the high-tech industry and partner at Boing Boing was flying across the country on a Wi-Fi-enabled plane when he decided he needed to talk to his family.

He pulled out his lap top and started talking to them through video chat, wishing his children good night before they were tucked into bed.

A United Airlines flight attendant then accused him of being a possible terrorist, as he explains on his blog.

“Security. Cameras not allowed!” was the response. There was clearly no argument.

I protested, but not too loudly. I don’t want to end up stripped searched in a cold basement cell below SFO, after all.

The flight attendant told him communicating on two-way devices is illegal and considered possible terrorist-related.

After all, it would allow terrorists to tuck their kids into bed before taking over the cockpit and flying  the plane into a building.

The real reason, Battelle later discovered in an FAA quidebook, is that it would make it uncomfortable for other seatmates. As if the airline industry actually cares about passenger comfort.

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The photo AMC did not want you to see (Photo by Chalicechick)

By Carlos Miller
Corporations are funny. They try to plaster their logos on everything from football stadiums to cheap give-away t-shirts, but the moment you snap a photo of that logo, they treat it as if it were some Pentagon top secret war plan.

It was only last month that I was told by Camel cigarette employees that I was not allowed to photograph their logo, even though I was standing on a public sidewalk where they were trying to get young adults hooked on their product.

The latest corporation to go Gestapo on photographers is AMC Theatres, the second largest movie theater chain in North America.

A woman named Chalicechick told Consumerist that she snapped a photo of a poster AMC had put up stating that children younger than six would no longer be allowed in R-rated movies after 6 p.m.

Chalicechick was so thrilled at the news that she took out her cell phone and photographed the poster. She happened to be standing outside at the ticket booth when she did this.

Then she walked inside and was confronted by an AMC employee in the lobby.

“You’re not allowed to take pictures of the AMC logo” she snapped.

I thought of pointing out the legal issues with that one, but I’d already paid for a ticket to the 3-d Alice in Wonderland and didn’t want to get kicked out.

“Um, OK” I said. My friend was late and I was standing in the lobby waiting for her. I was bored so I pulled out my phone.

“Are you taking pictures AGAIN?” the employee snapped, racing over.

Again, I was in the lobby. I guess I could have been taking a picture of a movie poster or the popcorn guy or something, but nothing remotely close to photographing a movie or anything actually illegal.

“I’m, um, looking at Twitter,” I said, holding up my phone.

She examined it intently, taking it out of my hand to make sure I wasn’t, in fact, photographing the popcorn guy. I had actually been looking at twitter, so she handed my phone back and my friend showed up and that was that.

First of all, there is no way in hell I would allow an AMC employee to snatch my phone out of my hand. I probably wouldn’t even let a cop do that.

Second of all, if I had been confronted by an employee for taking such a harmless photo, I would probably demand to speak to a manager and depending on how that went, I would probably end up demanding my money back.

And third of all, I would not be complimenting the company on my blog on their new policy. But Chalicechick still salutes them. Literally.

AMC Theatres, Chalicechick salutes you

Maybe she wants free movie tickets or something.

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"prison trees" from Broken Lens Blog

By Carlos Miller
In the eyes of prison security guards, it appeared to be a scene straight out of The Great Escape when a man on a bicycle pulled in front of the prison and began snapping photos of the trees.

Yes, trees.

He was immediately surrounded by security guards in three vehicles who demanded to know what he was doing, which is always an annoying question when it’s obvious what a man with a camera is doing.

This is how he described it on his blog.

they had bullet proof vests under their “security” t-shirts and gun holsters with guns in their utility belts.  as one all three get out of each of their cars, i realize that i probably shouldn’t have stopped to take pictures.

the chubbiest of the three men asked in a kind-hearted manner “what are you doing?”  i explained that i was only taking a photograph of the sad-looking trees, he asked to see the pictures and after about 10 mins of interrogation to make sure i wasn’t a terrorist or trying to break anyone out, he let me go.  i nearly got arrested for this shot.

Besides the obvious annoyance of not using capital letters to distinguish sentences, this nameless photographer in a nameless state was under the false impression that the fat security guard was “kind-hearted.”

But that kind-hearted security guard violated his rights by demanding to see his pictures and used strong-armed intimidation tactics to make the guy think he was going to get arrested.

Even if the photographer was taking pictures of the prison walls or the guards themselves, there is nothing they could do about it as long as he wasn’t on prison property. And even if he was, they could just order him to leave.

It’s not like he was on the inside. So they didn’t have to treat him that way.

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Melanie Brown is being sued by real estate agent who said he was accosted by her bodyguard (Photo from Star Pulse)

By Carlos Miller
The war against the paparazzi is now affecting photographers who are not even in the business.

A real estate agent said he was sitting in his car outside the home of former Spice Girl Melanie Brown when her bodyguard reached into his car and snatched his camera.

Amado Aguirre said he was only taking pictures of houses in her Los Angeles neighborhood to help him come up with an appraisal of a neighboring house.

But Brown, who was walking her dog with her husband, Stephan Belafonte, thought he was photographing her, so she notified her bodyguard who accosted Aguirre.

A scuffle ensued and Aguirre said he suffered bodily damage.

He is now suing, according to Star Pulse.

Even if he was a celebrity photographer, he would have a strong case against Brown. But the fact that he wasn’t will make him even more sympathetic to a jury if it reaches that level.

P.S. Now I am off to New York. Send me an email if you want to meet up.

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