10-15-08 – See You at the Fair

Well no, of course not. There are other contests that include things that don’t occur where I live, and I’m cool with that. It won’t be the first time I go outside the box a bit.

Yeah, but you have cool abandoned mines. No contest between a fair and an old mining building. 🙂

/Mountains and icebergs and sea lions and polar bears and Northern lights fall into the cool category as well.

you go and take pics, of course !

There’s a fall festival going on this weekend.
Anyone have advice on not looking like a creepy pedophile?
Can you just walk around these places taking pictures of people and hoping to avoid conversations? Most people in my neighborhood speak limited English, and my Spanish is only good enough to assist my pantomimes for tacos.

I’ve gotta get some friends. Stuff like this keeps coming up.

I’ve gotta get some friends. Stuff like this keeps coming up.

If you get a picture of a stapler on a pony ride I’ll mail you $10. $5 for something easier like one of those swings on chains that go around in circles.

If there’s a fark thread about a Chicago area pedophile and his accomplice seen abusing an underage horse with a stapler, please post bail.

For the HDR contest, I tried to take some pictures inside a mall in Milwaukee. It had a great view from the third floor down into an arched doorway full of shadows. I was stopped by one of the security guards and told I could not take picutes inside the mall. I told her I would just wait for my daughter to get back. After she was gone, I thought, I can do this really quick. Got tripod and camera all set up, was about to snap the picture and got a tap on the shoulder from a second security guard. I decided they meant business. You need to be careful out there.

Hooray (or should that be “Huzzah” ?). I just went to the local renn faire last night and I came home with a couple of possibles for the contest.
Crappy part is that the best one was done from long distance, with a short distance lens, jpg, at noisy-as-hell ISO. So I’m going to be working to try and correct that.

Correct. If they don’t ask you leave, then they can’t harass you about taking pictures.

Photography isn’t illegal, trespassing is, but to be trespassing in a mall you have to be asked to leave and refuse to do so.

Sorry, but that is incorrect. I own commercial property so I tend to stay up on the law. I suspect that you’re confusing the law that applies to photographing commercial buildings from true public areas (streets, sidewalks) with photographing private property while being ON private property.

As a hypothetical, the owners of the Empire State Building can’t prevent you from standing on the street (or flying by in a helo) and photographing the building but they CAN prohibit you from going inside (onto their property) and taking photographs there.

I (or any other property owner) can prohibit any activity I want to as long as it doesn’t hit on the Big 7 (race, religion, sex, etc.) If I don’t post those restrictions conspicuously enough then yes, you may get a first warning before being evicted and charged with trespassing. However if the restrictions are conspicuously posted, such as on each door or just inside each door, then no second chance.

There was a landmark case in Chattanooga, TN a couple of years ago involving the Hamilton Place Mall. To eliminate the problem of roving gangs of unsupervised teenagers, they banned any teen not accompanied by an adult after an early time (I think 6pm).

Some parents sued (probably those who dumped their kids off at the mall instead of parenting them) and lost. I think it went to the Surpremes but I’m not sure.

Bottom line: Commercial property owners and managers can ban anything they want to as long as it doesn’t touch on race, etc. Photography is certainly in that group. Many chains, for reasons I’m not sure I quite understand, are touchy about their “trade dress” – how the store is decorated and laid out. They’re the ones who push mall management on the photography issue.

Thing is, most malls will issue photography permits for the asking. The permit contains a description of what is to be photographed. Commons area lighting, Christmas decorations and things like that. Once one has the permit tag attached to the camera, the guards will stay away. I have photographed Christmas decorations in that same mall (Hamilton Place) so this is first-hand experience speaking.

I think that this who thing about banning cameras in malls is silly, given the proliferation of cell phone cameras, lapel cameras and so on, but as a property owner I do assert my right to do so.

John