The post at this link discusses a Guardian article (you can get there from here) in which Bruce Schneier ponders the post-9/11 fear of photography (and therefore photogs). None of the major terrorist activities or threats over the last decade have involved photography—though it makes for a useful plot point in films. Is our storytelling nature getting in the way of reality (and sanity)?
In the comments, B. Durbin mentions the relationship of this story to mall security’s inexplicable fear of all things photo/video.
My mother-in-law was asked by an apparent security guard (I believe she said he was wearing a suit, and so may have been guarding something/someone other than the hotel itself) to stop taking photos in the lobby of a hotel at which she was staying last Christmas. She asked why she couldn’t take photos there, and he said she’d have to ask about it at the registration desk.
When she asked about it at the registration desk, the clerk didn’t have a clue what she was talking about and “gave her permission” to do whatever she wanted.
Kudos to the clerk. Brickbats to the “guard.”
Although … it does kind of make me want to put on a suit and an earpiece and see what liberties I can get people to give up in public places, simply because of how I’m dressed.
Last word to B. Durbin:
I’m personally of the opinion that at least half of the OH MY GOD YOU CAN’T TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS is a simple power trip, security forces for whatever group deciding they can Stop the Horrible Photographers …
