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.
