About 30 minutes ago, I was taking photographs in the Gallery Place Metro station. I took a couple of tunnel shots and a slow-shutter train shot. Shortly thereafter, I was approached by a police officer who found my picture taking "suspicious" and she asked me for identification. She took down all of my information and put me through a brutal questioning session. I answered all of her questions truthfully, but she was so obviously skeptical. She even called in for backup! I told her several times that I was a photographer, just taking pictures. That's all. I told her I didn't know it was illegal to take pictures in the metro. She then said, "it's not illegal, but you weren't taking pictures of anything special. And that's suspicious."
At this point, I'm fuming inside. I wanted to say, "listen you imbecile: a photographer never has to explain herself or himself when taking a photo. There is a certain inexplicable beauty in symmetry and how it mixes with light, and what's more symmetric than a Metro tunnel in the perfect mood lighting?" But instead I just said, "uh....ok."
I mean, I know our police have to be cautious and all, but what the fuck! It angered me to an immense level, but I did a pretty good job of controlling my temper. I was so humiliated to have a cop on either side of me while everyone walked by, wondering what was going on.
I want to put this out there -- if you like taking pictures in the Metro, please be careful of paranoid cops. They were apathetic and useless when my car got broken into three different times and were apathetic and useless when my friend had a gun pointed at her by a raging lunatic in broad daylight, but when it comes to photographers in the Metro, their instinct calls upon them to act swiftly to save the world.
Please beware.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
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5 comments:
The same thing happened to me (though not as extreme) when I was photographing the LCD ad panels that are installed in the tunnel.
The officer asked what I was taking a picture of, and I replied. He didn't ask for ID or anything, but he did follow me all the way out of the station.
Thanks, gpliving. I spent a lot of time checking out threads on flickr, and apparently this is a very common problem photographers have in the DC Metro. It's good to know others share my woes ;-)
okay, that makes me want to just start taking pictures in the metro on principle. that's just retarded. everyone start taking pictures of "nothing" in the metro station.
I'm sorry you had to have that experience, Yonas... ughhhhhhhhh. Did they confiscate your memory card or make you delete the photos? :(
@justin
No, luckily I didn't have to deal with any of that jazz...if she had asked for the CF card, I probably would have bopped her over the head and jumped over the railing to make a quick escape.
Remember Ed? When he was out on his lunch break (like 6 months ago) he went out and was taking photos of this interesting building. He was approached by a special officer of some sort who said that it was a government building. He made Ed format his entire SD card. Now that's extra special bitchiness.
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