January 7, 2005
The History of Taking Pictures On The Subway
Good subway photo-ban related stuffs in the NY Times' Sewell Chan's article about taking photographs in the subway. MTA spokesman Tom Kelly tells him:
"Nobody is looking to violate anybody's civil rights or deny anybody's constitutional rights. But when you check with law enforcement agencies, they have uncovered photographs of subway and rail systems from various terrorist organizations. And I don't believe they were going into somebody's scrapbook."Kelly says that journalists with valid press credentials can shoot, as well as other photographers and documentarians, provided they have a permit. However, Chan points out "neither the procedure for obtaining one, nor the extent of access that would be granted, has been decided." A former MTA executive director thinks the subway photo ban is all about giving police more room to question people. Bah.
You can write to the MTA to protest the photo ban here. Gothamist also liked these tips from the article:
- The Yale University Press re-issue of Walker Evans' 1966 book of subway photos, Many Are Called.
- The Museum of the City of New York's three subway photograph exhibitions: Subway: Photographs by Bruce Davidson, Rebuilding the 1 & 9: Photographs by Sam Hollenshead, and Subway Memories: Photographs by Camilo Jose Vergara - the exhibitions end January 17
Gothamist on the first and second subway photo ban protests, as well as all rumblings of a subway photo-ban.
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i'm glad to see the nytimes is finally giving this story some well deserved press.
You gotta give the MTA credit for holding to the old canard about the photo ban being about terrorism. The real reason is twofold:
--They don't want deteriorating conditions at several stations being chronicled
--They want to protect their intellectual property rights, i.e. they want to be the ones to make money from images taken on their property.
Hopefully somebody will challenge this nonsense in court...
www.forgotten-ny.com
A few loaded questons:
I know! No pictures at the Empire State Building! After all, it's now a target. Worse yet, from the observation deck, you can actually see the Entire City (gasp!). Following the "Logic" that Tom Kelly espouses, this is a valid reaction.
Myself, as soon as the Pointy Haired Managers re-establish a Real Procedure to get a "Photo permit" (bet they sit on that for over a year...), I'm applying for one. Granted, I've not taken pictures of the Subway in Years, but with the development of Digital Cameras it's a lot easier now that I don't have to develope pictures in a Dark room. (Any day now, some one will see some of my pictures and say "Why Black & White? What's a Dark Room? What's an Enlarger?? Chemicals?!?")
Anyone know: Is the Port Authority Also Banning Photographers?
It’s not the ban that worries me so much it’s the article in the Times that will bring the ban to the riders attention that bothers me. The ban in itself is pretty meaningless.
Haven't been in the subways in years but now this ban makes me want to go and take many, many pictures of my feet on the ugly cement platforms or the backs of people as they walk up the stairs
or the ceiling of Grand Central Station or all other highly targeted possible terrorist attack venues that made the photo ban so very necessary and vital to our safety. Because everyone knows that terrorists would never think of riding the subways to case the joints. Nope, just need those photos.
Oh, and by the way, why not remove every website about subways in New York? And get rid of all the masters and copies of any movie which shows the subways!nd that includes the original King Kong movie! Do it! Do it NOW, before it's too late!
While the MTA hasn't worked out the procedure for getting a permit, I've heard that the permit itself will be an MTA patch that the photographer must affix to themselves via a turban...
haha, i totally want a photo turban. or can i just claim the image is my god and it's against my religion not to photographically document my life.
please everyone, write letters to mta! you can also write to bloomberg (whom i believe is also opposed to the photo ban) via nyc.gov.
great article. but maybe i'm biased since i went to high school with the author.