Take action now to keep photographing on the streets of New York legal!

[ddk]

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Dear Fellow Photographers,

 

We are suddenly facing serious legal restrictions to photographing on the streets of New York.

 

You may have already received information about this. If not, it deserves your attention - right now and word needs to be spread, immediately.

 

TAKE ACTION:

1) Click on this link to sign the petition:

http://www.pictureny.org/petition/index.php

We don't have much time with an august 3rd deadline.

 

2) Attend the Rally for the 1st Amendment -

Union Square - TOMORROW - Friday, July 27th, 6:30 pm

Show up to make a statement about New York City's laws and regulations regarding filming, shouting, biking, parading, and dancing.

 

3) Please contact the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting immediately and express your concerns.

Julianne Cho

Associate Commissioner

Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting

1697 Broadway

New York, NY 10019

jcho@film.nyc.gov

ph: 212.489.6710

fax: 212.307.6237

 

Excerpted from an email by artist/filmmaker Jem Cohen:

 

"The Mayor's Office of Film deals primarily with big film shoots (ie. commercials, features, t.v.) where permits and insurance are, understandably, a given. However, many photographers and filmmakers carry on an equally vital tradition in which spontaneous documentation of the urban environment is at the very heart of our work. Being a street photographer often means standing in a random location and waiting: for the right activity, the right light, the break in the traffic; the countless other unpredictable factors that need to fall into place to make a shot worthwhile...

 

Permits would have to be obtained for specific dates and times and exact locations, and the insurance would be out of reach for many individuals. The fact is that we simply CANNOT predict where, when, and how long we are going to film or photograph; we CANNOT afford expensive liability insurance policies; we occasionally NEED to work with other people or to use tripods to support our gear. (The regulations would, for example, effectively rule out a great deal of time-lapse photography which depends on tripods and cannot possibly be done with time limitations of 10 to 30 minutes, as well as the use of large format still cameras and long lenses).

 

Especially in the current climate, official clarification of photographer's rights could be a positive thing. (Many of us have been shut down by police or other authorities who do not seem to understand that we DO have rights to film and photograph in public places). That said, if these regulations go through, it would invite if not require police to harass or shut down both professional artists and amateurs.

 

Unfortunately, I believe that we must see the proposed regulations not only as a blow against New York as a city that welcomes and inspires art-making (and historical documentation), but as part of a continuum of broader attacks against civil liberties and free expression."

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[stunsworth]

Hi David

 

It might help if you provided an official link to the actual legislation that's being proposed.

 

There was a similar scare story in the UK a few months ago that turned out to have no basis in fact. There was no legislation, and none was being introduced.

 

The way it's described above no tourists would be able to take snaps without a permit. That seems unlikely to me.

[dhsimmonds]

In fact the Mayor of London did introduce bans on photography in many places including Trafalgar Square. A number of photographers were arrested, then later released when found to be neither paodaphiles or terrorists.

 

The Mayor was forced to remove the signs banning photography in London after several high profile incidents, some involving members of the House of Commons photographic club!

 

However, the police and security forces are still very jumpy about characters with cameras hanging around public buildings or in the proximity of young children, so I guess this may be the situation now in New York too.

[sdai]

This has been beaten to death long time ago.

 

Permits soon to be required in NYC: News Discussion Forum: Digital Photography Review

 

Girl watching is still allowed ... chill out, man.Time for a coffee.

[mat_mcdermott]

If this passes I wonder if you'll be able to get a plainclothes police officer as security like you can with a film permit? I want to apply to get a permit for do street photography on 5th and 59th and make a cop follow me around all to day to make sure I don't get hassled.

[elansprint72]

Interesting first post.

[Iron Flatline]

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This whole thing strikes me as baloney. The City has done a great job of bringing film productions to NY, they're not about to stop photographers... and I'd like to see them enforce it.

 

Yeah, if you're going to have a professional shoot in the City, and block a sidewalk so you can shoot your Nike ad with some over-paid Hip-Hopper, then go get a license and pay your fee.

 

But I'm all for Civil Liberties, so post the Legislation. Maybe it needs to be fine-tuned.

[DaveEP]

In fact the Mayor of London did introduce bans on photography in many places including Trafalgar Square. A number of photographers were arrested, then later released when found to be neither paodaphiles or terrorists.

 

I wanted to do a shoot in the Trafalgar Square area a few months ago. i was told that I needed to pay a £5,000 (!!!) fee for the permit. Needless to say, the budget didn't cover that.....

[geoff]

On the surface, the proposed rules might seem realistic and logical, in intent, to most with regards to managing commercial activities. The propose rule basically states that any group of two or more people using a handheld camera (still or video) for more than 30 minutes at a single location (defined as a 100-foot area) would have to apply for and obtain a permit and would have to present proof of $1 million in insurance (unless a waiver was obtained). Also under the new rules, any group of five or more people using a single tripod for more than 10 minutes would have to obtain a permit and have insurance.

 

The issue is that, in actuality, the proposed rule is broadly written, appears deliberately worded and intentionally vague as to invite selective interpretation and enforcement. As stated by Christopher Dunn, NYCLU Associate Legal Director, “It completely opens the door to discriminatory enforcement of the permit requirements, and that is of enormous concern to us because the people who are going to get pointed out are the people who have dark skin or who are shooting in certain locations.”

 

Additionally, despite repeated requests for clarification, the city has refused to add such language to the proposed regulation.

 

It is also important to understand the context in which the proposed rule came about as a specific result of the case of Rakeesh Sharma, an Indian documentarian, who, in May 2005, was detained by police who claimed he had violated what ended up to be a vague, ill-defined, and poorly-implemented city ordinance. Sharma and NYCLU subsequently sued the city for racial profiling.

 

The NYCLU's main concern, in the Rakeesh Sharma case, was that there were no written rules on when a permit was needed or how it was to be obtained or when an application could be denied. The current proposed rule is an improvement, but as it is written, it lends itself to misinterpretation, especially by those intent on doing so.

 

Of notable concern is the far reaching precedent that would be set, well beyond New York City, if this proposed rule actually passed.

 

Public comment period ends Friday, August 3, 2007.

 

Further informations can be obtained at the following links:

 

• Proposed Chapter 9, Title 43 of the Rules of the City of New York
   
  
• Picture New York E-Petition
   
  
• NYCLU Fact Sheet on Film Permitting Scheme Comment Period
   
  
• NYCLU Comments to Proposed Film Permit Rules
   
  
• New York Times Article - City May Seek Permit and Insurance for Many Kinds of Public Photography
   
  
• New York Daily News Editorial - Lights, camera, inaction
   
  
• The New York Sun Editorial - Say Cheese
   
  
• Picture New York Without Pictures of New York
  

 

 

Geoff

www.myspace.com/geoffotos

[mat_mcdermott]

OK, so I was joking before about making a cop follow me around for the fun of it... Seriously though, read through the actual proposed regulations. Still photographers are essentially being given the same treatment as large film productions, even though the disruption caused by the vast majority of photography is nothing like a film shoot. I can't imagine this actually being enforced. If it passes those of us in NYC should form a photography ring around City Hall and City Hall Park in protest.

 

Tangentally, I couldn't make the Union Square rally this evening because I had already agreed to play tennis. On the way home I got my tennis bag searched at one of those police checkpoints in the subway. Sweaty tennis clothes, an empty water bottle and two tennis racquets apparently proved I was actually playing tennis and not up to no good.

[Guest stnami]

No use blaming the pollies and regulators we are the ones who bring it all upon ourselves................in the world of want, want, I want, I take, take take, goes hand in hand.................................selfish lot we are

[ron110n]

Probably some anti-camera activist influencing the law makers.

 

Ban on Automatic Focus

Ban on Assault Telephoto lens

Ban on Bayonet Lens

Ban on rapid fire motor drives

Ban on military style hand-grip bodies

Ban on high capacity Memory Cards

 

Camera safety certification required upon purchase with a 15 day waiting pending background check of the

Federal Agents of the BATFC (Bureau of Alcohol Tobaco Firearms and Camera).

 

When traveling, all cameras must be loaded at the trunk of the vehicle with memory cards or film in the glove compartment.

[mat_mcdermott]

Excerpted from an email by artist/filmmaker Jem Cohen:

 

[...] Being a street photographer often means standing in a random location and waiting: for the right activity, the right light, the break in the traffic; the countless other unpredictable factors that need to fall into place to make a shot worthwhile........ [...]

 

(The regulations would, for example, effectively rule out a great deal of time-lapse photography which depends on tripods and cannot possibly be done with time limitations of 10 to 30 minutes, as well as the use of large format still cameras and long lenses).

 

 

Unless I'm reading the regulations wrong, if you're by yourself you could shoot anyplace on City property, for any amount of time, using a tripod or handheld, without having to obtain a permit. Therefore, street photography should never fall under the definitions of activities needing a permit (unless you're employing an assistant or something whilst shooting and I can't imagine that happening too often...). Even if one could argue that you have an "interaction" with your subjects, that interaction is at most a few minutes before another "interaction" starts and a new thirty minute period commences.

 

Time lapse photography or large format landscape/architectural photography (provided no assistants are involved) would also likely not need a permit.

 

I think this proposed legislation is a gigantic muddle (to put it politely), being horrendously vaguely worded, not to mention ill-conceived (lumping photographers in with the production crew of Law and Order), but when attacking it we must be careful in what we attack. Jem Cohen's claim that the "spontaneous documentation of the urban environment" of NYC is threatened really isn't entirely accurate (did Gary Winogrand ever use an assistant or have an interaction lasting longer than thirty minutes with a particular subject in at a "single site") and could be used by those who wish to see the legislation ennacted to belittle those who do not.

 

By the way, for those who don't know Jem Cohen's work, it's quite interesting.

[jrc]

The problem with vaguely worded legislation is that it essentially unloads the interpretation of what is legal and what is not onto the wrong people -- a cop, not a judge. If a guy goes out to shoot a portrait of a friend with a NYC background, is that "two or more people?" If a guy is *paid* to shoot a portrait with an NYC background, is that different than a tourist shooting a friend? And so on -- and you really don't want this decision being made by a cop who is hot and cranky and feels like exercising his authority and his high-school education on some hippie with a camera, or on a guy who looks sort of non-Anglo. Once you start interacting with a cop, there's no way to win -- even if you win in court, it'll cost you a fortune. And the cops don't care -- it's not coming out of their pocket.

 

(When I worked as a reporter in Miami in the late 1970s, there was a "crime" known as "contempt of cop." If a local street guy was pissing off the cops, they'd pick him up, usually on a Friday afternoon, charge him with loitering, and stick him in jail. He'd then have to make a choice between paying a fee to a bailbondsman to get him out, or sitting in jail until Monday, when the judge would cut him loose. That's why they had the riots in the early 80s -- the situation was becoming intolerable.)

 

There are obvious and easily definable differences between commercial film crews, who can take over an entire block for an entire day or longer, and who really do create a major disturbance, and a guy with a Nikon and a model. If you're going to have legislation, you should make sure the definitions are clear, base it on reason, and leave the inoffensive shooters alone.

 

JC

[miami91]

(When I worked as a reporter in Miami in the late 1970s, there was a "crime" known as "contempt of cop." If a local street guy was pissing off the cops, they'd pick him up, usually on a Friday afternoon, charge him with loitering, and stick him in jail. He'd then have to make a choice between paying a fee to a bailbondsman to get him out, or sitting in jail until Monday, when the judge would cut him loose. That's why they had the riots in the early 80s -- the situation was becoming intolerable.)

 

JC

 

Not to get off topic, but this is not exactly true. Being from Miami, and having lived through both the Liberty City and Overtown riots in the 80s, it was a whole pervasive climate of anti-black hostility, not merely picking up and jailing street guys/homeless. There were many cases of police brutality, large scale diverting of federal funds meant for the black community to instead provide housing and food for recently arrived Cuban immigrants, etc. All punctuated by the killing of Arthur McDuffie by Miami Police, an insurance salesman whose crime was speeding (and being black). Interestingly enough, the Miami Police continued many of their retrograde tactics (locking up the homeless over Orange Bowl weekend, Miami Grand Prix, etc., just to clear the streets, routinely collecting and burning the possessions of the homeless) well after the riots, until being sued by the Florida ACLU in the 90s.

 

Jeff.

[mat_mcdermott]

 

There are obvious and easily definable differences between commercial film crews, who can take over an entire block for an entire day or longer, and who really do create a major disturbance, and a guy with a Nikon and a model. If you're going to have legislation, you should make sure the definitions are clear, base it on reason, and leave the inoffensive shooters alone.

 

 

Exactly.