(erielack) NYTimes: Ban on Subway Photography Prompts Underground Protest

["Gary R. Kazin" <gkazin_@_yahoo.com>]

Ban on Subway Photography Prompts Underground Protest
June 7, 2004
By ALAN FEUER

At a protest by photographers, you see things like a guy
taking pictures of a guy taking pictures of a few more guys
taking pictures of one another. 

There was such a protest yesterday, but it might take
hundreds of pages to describe it, given all the pictures
that were taken, each one worth at least a thousand words. 

The photographers - about 100 of them - gathered to
express their outrage at the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority's proposed ban on taking pictures in the subway
system.  Meeting at Grand Central Terminal, they rode the
trains for upward of an hour, shutters clicking, flashes
popping, in a filmed rebuke to the idea that photography is
somehow a national security threat. 

"The point is really to make everyday people wake up and
realize that photographers are not terrorists," said Joe
Anastasio, who organized the event.  "In the last few years,
photographers near anything vaguely important have been
getting harassed." 

Mr. Anastasio went on to tell the story of a friend who
took his wife's picture near the Whitestone Bridge, only to
be called in for questioning by the police.  He told another
of a man caught snapping pictures at a Metro -North station
who was interrogated for nearly two hours by authorities at
the scene. 

"The paranoia," he said, "has gone a little too far."  The
transit authority's proposal, posted on its Web site, says
the agency is planning to adopt "a general prohibition
against photography and videotaping in the system."  The
agency is soliciting public comment on the ban and plans to
vote on the proposal in the next few months. 

"It's a security measure," said a spokeswoman for the
agency, Deirdre Parker.  "It was suggested by the N.Y.P.D." 

Mr. Anastasio and his fellow photographers said it was
ridiculous that pictures of the subway might somehow make
the trains unsafe.  After all, they said, there are
thousands of subway photographs already on the Internet. 

"The subway is so well documented that what's the point?" 
asked Jean Miele, a fine art and commercial photographer. 
"This sort of thing makes us less free, not safer." 

Infuriated that his photographic rights might in fact be
curtailed, Mr. Anastasio sent messages to several friends,
asking them to show up yesterday to photograph the subway. 
They did - with Nikons, Leicas, Canons and such.  There were
an $8,000 digital job and a cheap mini that showed a nudie
picture through its viewfinder. 

When a downtown No. 6 train arrived, the photographers
began to cheer.  They boarded in a herd and held their
cameras up, taking pictures of other hands holding cameras
up. 

At the 14th Street station, they split into two groups,
stood against the walls and photographed each other across
a corridor.  This had varying effects on the people passing
by.  One woman fixed her hair before she ran the gantlet;
another covered her face. 

One guy said to his buddy, "Hey, what's with all the
paparazzi?" 

His buddy said, "Dunno, I think it must be you."  There
was a tense moment when the crowd decided it would
photograph a transit police dispatch station at 14th
Street.  A startled officer came out and suggested that they
leave. 

"You didn't say 'Cheese!' " one of the cheekier
photographers said. 

When an L train finally arrived, they tried taking pictures
of the motorman.  He was not keen on this idea, however, and
blocked his window with an advertising circular. 

Many of the photographers said they planned to post their
pictures on the Internet - Jared Skolnick, for example, who
takes pictures of the subway on his cellphone and then
displays them online. 

"I've learned that so many crazy things can happen on the
subway," said Mr. Skolnick, who paused and then added,
"including this." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/07/nyregion/07subway.html?ex=1087603439&ei=1&en=68cf657c4f211755

=====
Gary R. Kazin
DL&W Milepost R35.7
Rockaway, New Jersey

http://www.geocities.com/gkazin/index.html


	
		
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