I don't think the Port Authority would like it if you looked at this photo
plus.google.com
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A guy I met who's an American-born Muslim (from Palo Alto) was returning to the US after a trip abroad (post 9/11) when he was pulled for a "random" extra discussion with some official.
They sent him into another area and when he got inside, he told me, he looked to the right and there was one of those huge pictures of the then-President George W. Bush flanked by flags and everything and he just started cracking up. He turned to the official behind the desk and said, still laughing, "Can I ask you a question? Did you guys put that up there or did they make you put it up?"
The official replied, "Go on through sir, I can tell you're really American."
This eventually morphed into hassling, arresting anyone taking photos of these sites...link below has some good info
https://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/09/24/homeland-securi...
It would be amusing if it weren't so scary.
This whole environment is just the Stanford Prison Experiment writ large.
He seemed like a nice guy who cared about his job, maybe a civil engineer or something. He wasn't dressed as though he were in a security position, or anything. (His badge didn't say.)
Oh no, we are. If you would consider the plight of a peasant in Tsarist Russia dystopian, then we are in the 21st century industrialized 1st world version already. We're definitely not too close to THX-1138 or 1984. But we are in the same quadrant as Brave New World and The Machine Stops.
And of course, if someone takes a picture with a 4x5 camera it means they are serious.
> "Why would you photograph that? Photograph the WTC.
I like that part. He tells a photographer who cared enough to invest in a 4x5 camera what to photograph. "You don't know what is pretty. I'll tell you what's pretty, go shoot that instead".
I "appreciated" the creative input.
With some clouds around it looks better: https://goo.gl/photos/M3aTnTZ7uso4eqSA6
Finally, a professional photographer is probably going to be carrying a camera that's 10x more expensive than mine. I bought my Toyo 45CF for $500 used.
Played a bit with a 4x5 camera in the past. It was amazing and confusing how much stuff can be done (selective focus, perspective control) by adjusting the front and back independently.
You can control the image plane, the focal plane, and what part of the image circle you want to use. It's wonderful. I really like pictures of tall things with straight lines (not "tilted up" as what happens when the film plane is not parallel to the subject), so it's the right camera for me, because you can use the bottom portion of the image circle to get that field of view while still keeping the film parallel to the subject.
Nobody has ever asked to licence my photos. Please consider them CC-BY. Send me an email if you want something more concrete than a HN comment.
The Port Authority authority was set up under the instigation of Robert Moses by Al Smith to provide Moses with extra-legal authority to complete his works projects and otherwise execute his whims.
There was a point in time in this city when the head of the Port Authority had more power than the Mayor of New York.
The power exercised by the Authority and attitude of secrecy are institutional. It predated 9/11 and it will never go away.
They are paid to be imposing and bully people and occupy a space. If one is ever bothering you for doing something you have every right to do simply call the police. Especially if a security guard obstructs your movement or touches you.
Police generally dislike bully security guards as much as you do and will tell them to knock it off immediately. A pattern of harassment will generally get the security guard fired.
Generally you have a higher probability of a trained police officer knowing and understanding a photographers rights under the law than a security guard.
Also an important distinction remains between photographs and video which might contain audio. There can be different rules regarding recording audio.
[0]: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/photographers-what-do-...
I myself have handed out badges and walkie talkies to untrained "security" folks at events and my estimate is that I had to pull about 10% out during their shift due to abuse of power and tell about 80% to not come back after their shift. From a security perspective, the 5% or so we had as regulars on staff were the only ones you'd rely on; that were also the folks who spend most of their shift just sitting around, but when there are real problems they deal with them level headed but efficiently.
If it helps the OP: The guy's superior is probably just as annoyed as you are by his guard's behavior but he does not have the luxury to simply replace him due to crappy pay and therefore a lack of applicants.
I was on the sidewalk between the trees and the road that you can clearly see in the Street View link, with my little point & shoot Sony camera when the security guard came out of the building yelling. This must have been 2003-2004.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamford_Cone [2] https://goo.gl/maps/1Yg8WCg3Rqm
Why does everyone think calling the cops will magically solve everything and every cop is a honest truth teller immune from politics, bullshit, and bias? As someone who is classified as 'white' but has much darker skin than your average white person (I pass as arab easily), I can tell you, shit gets real when the cops are bothered and the guy closer to the bottom of the potem pole usually gets fucked, regardless of merit. The cops will just let the courts figure it out, so now you're in a cell, spending money on lawyers, etc because some high school drop-out making minimum wage as a security guard thinks you're a terrorist.
Its just easier to just accept the bullying and go away. That's what the guy in the blog post pretty much did. He took a half-assed picture instead of the one he wanted and felt terrible after. How exactly did any of this make us safer? Who can he complain to? And if he did, who would even care?
This shouldn't be the status quo in America.
I was mugged about two months ago in a pretty busy intersection and raised the issue when the investigation was 'suspended'. Even though the city's low on budget and such, it sounds incredibly unreasonable for an investigation to simply.. stop. So, a FOIA request for the camera data that received a "We have no responsive records for your request" response. I complained to the investigator, who seemed to be legally obligated to work with me. He told me that the investigation was never suspended since they were waiting for a response from me (not true) and that when they called, I didn't pick up (which makes perfect sense, since my phone was stolen - which is mentioned in the police report).
When I started to ask the guy if he could help add an extra camera to that intersection, he absolutely refused to and basically called it a waste of time - even though it would help him and many others in the future.
To get me off the call, he asked me if I had anything to drink that night, which I (naively) said "One drink four hours before the mugging." He then told me that because of that one drink, it would be impossible for me to verify anybody in a line up, closed the investigation, and ended the call 30 seconds later.
It shouldn't be this way.
I remember one of the first times I was pulled over. I was driving my dad's car, which was a nicer but not terribly expensive, luxury model. The cop literally had his gun out in a battle pose as his partner approached my window. I thought that was normal until someone told me otherwise. Apparently, the cop thought the car was stolen and was expecting a gunfight due to how I looked (young dark guy in a bmw driving the way most teenagers drive).
I'm decently well off now and don't often deal with this stuff much or just don't notice it anymore, but growing up I was certainly treated a certain way my white friends were not. I don't blame them if they don't understand this automatically. They never had those experiences and its understandable. But it is annoying to be auto-downvoted like I'm making all of this up or have some big agenda. I rarely talk about this stuff to be honest, mostly because of reactions like this.
- Oppressing one group while championing another
- Oppressing the group you are championing
- Acting in anger and alienating potential allies
- Acting in anger and discrediting potential alliesI hope someone here reads it and realizes that other people experience a different (and usually less pleasant and more hostile) world.
Because of this:
> Its just easier to just accept the bullying and go away.
Someone has to stand up to the bullies, or they'll keep going forever.
Obviously I'm coming at this from a privileged position - I'm a white male with a relatively clean background. My job and family situation would permit me to be detained, even for 24 hours, without catastrophic results.
If I were black, or a Sikh, or here on a work visa, or working a job that I'm likely to lose if I don't show up with no notice, then I would skew more heavily towards the "ignore the bully". But I'm not, so I wouldn't.
How did you feel about the shootings in Dallas and Baton Rouge of officers?
Ever heard of non-violent civil disobedience? It was popularized by a little known guy named Martin Luther King Jr. He got it from another guy who went by the name of Mahatma Gandhi.
To dispatch the examples of Gandhi and MLK--please ask yourselves how their civil disobedience would be handled in modern America. Ask yourselves how their messages would be mocked, subverted, and distorted with modern social media, even without state intervention. These are different times, my friends.
(Also, mentioning MLK while glossing over the credible threat of armed domestic terrorism posed by Malcom X, the Black Panthers, and many other factions at that time in American history is inaccurate--you miss a lot of the background political pressure brought to bear by people "standing up to bullies".)
The reason I asked the parent question was not to be ghoulish or edgy, and I mean that sincerely.
The fact of the matter is that the quaint notion of "standing up to the bullies" is completely out of date. You probably imagine telling some guard to fuck off, and when they return with a cop, what then?
You'd give the officer (who is probably of less-than-amazing intelligence, because of a court case years ago allowing PDs to discriminate on that) a lecture on the freedom of panorama, and they'd let you be? If not, then what?
If you don't resist, you hardly have "stood up to the bullies".
If you resist and lose--and remember, resisting can be anything as simple as bleeding on the officer's uniform when they decide to truncheon you--you will then be rewarded with the slow grinding gears of American "justice". At the very least, even if found innocent, you'll be out major court costs and time, while the bullies go about their business unimpeded.
If you resist and win--say, by beating the shit out of the bullies--then they'll summon additional forces until you are subdued. Subdued repeatedly. There may be an investigation later, but that'll be of academic interest to you while you're handcuffed to a hospital bed recuperating to be in good shape for your prison sentence.
So, again, bearing that escalation in mind, think about my earlier question--because that's the inevitable chain of actions that start with "standing up to the bullies".
And that's why when a poster points out that maybe standing up is just not a good idea, we shouldn't downvote them.
In reality all those court cases you hear about and investigations happen because a patron (opposing political party, deep pocketed advocacy group, millionaire/billionaire activist) has decided to help you for their own ends. There is no "police justice" hotline you call and if you think resisting arrest or arguing with the cops in public is going to make you some kind of HN/Reddit hero, then you'll be in a surprise when you end up on the local police blotter and later with an open/shut case conviction and unable to get anything but a mcJob.
Life isn't Judge Judy or Hollywood SJW movies. Unless you have significant backing from wealth and the media, you don't become successful against the justice system, regardless of how wronged you were.
> you resist and win--say, by beating the shit out of the bullies
These are not the only two outcomes of resisting, and that is not the only way to win.
I reject your false binary of "submit to anyone who might summon authority | murder policemen" as the only possible choices when faced with this scenario.
I've sketched out my logic and reasoning, please do the same.
Also, the false binary you presented is indeed false--because that's not what I wrote. My thesis is exactly that "standing up to the bullies" will lead to escalation of force in the short term which leads to violence and loss, and that failure to "stand up to the bullies" is achieved by doing anything other than continuing what you were doing when they told you to stop.
Please stop the bluster and explain this magical thinking that somehow lets us both "stand up to the bullies" without consequences of escalation.
In my other comments, I've acknowledged that standing up to bullies isn't free, and that some people may suffer more than others as a result due to how our society works.
Killing police officers is still murder, and it not being state-sponsored violence doesn't make it any less of a bullying tactic - if bullying is the right word to use for a horrific crime.
I don't think I can really make my case any clearer.
That may be so... history is written by the victors.
I do know this: the path to success for any minority movement is the path to becoming accepted by the majority.
A growing violent movement gives a virtually infinitely powerful state legal and moral justification for wiping you out.
A peaceful movement gives the state no justification for stamping it out with force. It must be challenged at an intellectual level.
Sure the current media environment is manipulative... but it's nowhere near as bad as it was in the past. Watch national news from the 60s, you'll see what I'm talking about. Also we have the internet now, every falsehood the media spreads is immediate debunked and it seems they know that.
The truth can't be suppressed forever. As MLK said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."
This is why I think non-violent resistance as a tactic is the best chance any movement has for success when normal legislative channels have failed.
Otherwise, though, I agree that for progress to be made a non-violent movement must be present. Being a violent movement doesn't really work unless you've got outside support against your state.
That said, and to speak to the implications you mention, it is my firm belief that while a violent movement is doomed to fail it still must exist for the non-violent movement to make progress.
If the choice is between listening to the vocal but peaceful minorities and ignoring them, the choice historically is to ignore them. Once the minority's voice is seen as a less-costly alternative to dealing with violence, the state tends to listen.
MLK had Malcolm X. The LGBTQ folks had the Stonewall Riots.
It's a bloody and inefficient way of making policy, but it seems to be the course of things.
I believe they can, furthermore I believe that the state is unable to ignore a majority non-violent movement. One example is the gay rights movement. Once critical mass is reached and culture is changed, politicians change their tune, and laws practically unwrite themselves.
In the case where a minority non-violent movement necessarily stays just that, then yes I think there is a valid tactical argument to be made in having a complementary movement.
Sure, but they are the only people (other than soldiers) endorsed explicitly by the state to commit acts of physical violence.
If you cannot see the issues with using the same standards in regards to them as to normal citizens, you do not understand human nature.
If police violence is the problem (and it is), then my violence isn't the solution. Worse, it removes me from any kind of moral high ground where I can try to help end police violence by trying to change police policy, training, or character. Instead, it leads me in the direction of civil war.
Is starting a civil war really your best answer to police violence? Or do you think "just kill a few and things will straighten out"?
I have not advocated for that position here, because like you I think that there are better ways of fixing the problem--policy, training, and recruitment.
That all said, I think we have to acknowledge that we can't use the same moral calculus for officers (read: agents of state violence) that we do for common citizens.
You even mention as much when you invoke "the moral high ground", because there is a qualitative difference between an act of violence committed by a citizen on their own (presumably limited to their own resources and defensible only by circumstance) and a one committed by an agent of the state (limited only by the resources allocated by the state and defensible by the blank check of "I'm a police officer").
For what it's worth, I don't have a strong alternative code to present at this time--I merely think that one is necessary.
One could make the argument that, for example, officers forfeit the right to appeal in the event of a complaint against them, that they should be imprisoned immediately if found doing wrong and executed publicly if found falsifying evidence. This heavy burden--especially if eagerly applied--would serve to help limit the number of people who merely want to be a thug with a badge.
And that's not a great plan for a number of reasons--consider the case where criminals just cry foul to remove officers from circulation. But we have to start thinking beyond the simple idea that an officer is in the same moral calculus as a citizen.
It's precisely to avoid civil war that change has to happen: when a private citizen commits murder, it is an isolated tragedy. When an agent of the state that does the same, it is cause to question the validity of that state. A lying citizen is not a sign of societal decay, but a lying officer or agent of the state is.
Criminals will try to game the system. I agree on that as well.
> A lying citizen is not a sign of societal decay, but a lying officer or agent of the state is.
A lying citizen is a sign of societal decay. A lying officer or agent of the state is a bigger sign.
The first step towards change is acknowledging you have a problem.
Attempting to pull that into this conversation isn't going to lead to anything except grief.
Is your question genuine, or are you trying to bait us into saying something that could be construed as an endorsement of murder?
So, how important is it to you?
Unfortunately I do not live in or around NYC so all I can say is fuck the port authority.
It will be, as long as people take this attitude:
> Its just easier to just accept the bullying and go away.
You have to decide what's actually important to you.
Do you, like, commute by luxury Towncar?
I've "only" been in NYC for seventeen years, and I have not been quite so lucky as you.
> The Port Authority's policy is not law. This is a public place, and I can photograph whatever I want.
The rebelliousness seems a little hollow in the light of admission of being cowed. Of course, I'dve had similar thinking.
Is this a known thing, that the Port Authority doesn't want this building photographed? I am unfamiliar with the situation.
This is similar to how journalists feel in light of the NSA scandals. It's not wrong to write about government overreach but if you cross a line they might come after you so it's best not to approach the line, even if that is a private conversation on a phone or via email.
Protestors, photographers, journalists, and people with encrypted data are getting arrested. The first, forth, and fifth amendments are under attack. Cops are progressively getting more violent against nonviolent bystanders. The fear is real.
edit: add "about"
They prohibit photographs on their transit system: http://www.panynj.gov/path/pdf/PATH-Rules-Regulations-12-20-...
The consensus I get from doing some research is that they are overreaching. Anyone can make any policy they want. Anyone can approach anyone else in public and ask them to do whatever they want. Whether or not there is any force of law behind those policies or questions is up to the courts to decide.
A few years ago, someone was going to sue the MTA for their photography policy. Apparently there is a law on the books regarding suing public-benefit corporations (of which the MTA and Port Authority are); if they agree to settle with you, and you choose not to accept the settlement, you are personally liable for their legal fees if the court awards you a settlement that's less than their legal fees. So of course, these policies can't be changed, as an individual can't out-resource the government.
I don't know if it's true or not. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a professional photographer. I'm just a guy who tries to visit the park with a few pieces of film every now and again.
Nice!
Whenever I've seen one of those signs I feel like there should a sibling sign next to that reads, "No reading this sign!".
Am pretty sure there is no rule precisely like that. There might be such a rule, but it applies generally, not just when suing PBCs.
Port Authority photography rules only apply when you are on Port Authority property. That's why they can have those stupid "no photographs" signs in the tunnels and on the bridges.
However, I do like to sit down and consider things before making a decision. Did I want to get arrested? Not really.
I got my photo and I didn't get arrested, so this is almost the best-possible outcome, right?
edit: regulation -> reputation
"The prevailing theory was that the lane closures were retribution against Fort Lee's Mayor Mark Sokolich (D) for failing to endorse Christie in the 2013 gubernatorial election. That motive was alleged by federal prosecutors in May 2015, in charges against Bridget Anne Kelly, former Deputy Chief of Staff for Christie, and Bill Baroni and David Wildstein, both of whom had been Christie-appointed officials at the Port Authority. Wildstein pleaded guilty. The indictment charged that the three conspired to commit fraud by illegally exploiting Port Authority resources for political ends."
I don't have the resources to contend with the Port Authority.
We need a name for this fallacy:
"We are empowered to stop terrorism."
"X can be used for terrorism."
"Therefore we are empowered to stop X."
Some relevant possible values for X: photography, money, cryptography, travel, social media...
The copyright in an architectural work that has been constructed does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place. — 17 U.S. Code § 120(a)
I wish someone would though!
http://content.photojojo.com/photo-technique/tips/legal-righ...
Reading between the lines a bit I suspect this passerby was relaying instructions he got in some kind of "security" training ostensibly about terrorism. If he discourages you from taking the photo, and a real security incident can be avoided, so much the better. If he overplays his hand and, for example, tries to restrain you at the scene, this causes a bigger story and a blemish to his employer at the very least.
I think you handled it correctly. Bend, but don't break. Know your rights. Understand what is at stake and then decide if you want to risk standing your ground.
That said, I am more qualified to be on commenting on petapixel than Hacker News. On photo web sites there are endless stories of overreach by individuals and institutions that attempt to limit a photographers right to take photographs in public. The situation in the USA is different than many other countries where photographing anyone associated with the military, any military installation and a great amount of "infrastructure" sites are off limits to photographers.
So while the Port Authority probably has no legal standing to limit photography it is interesting to ask if they have any logical standing for doing so. In numerous texts on the topic of physical security this issue is addressed. Security experts typically say that persons taking video or photos of secured locations with particular regard to photos of perimeter security, lighting security and cameras might be viewed as suspicious actors.
That common sense advice is taken to an absurd extreme here as it is highly unlikely that a threat actor would utilize a 4x5 camera, which is cumbersome, obvious and reliant on labor intensive film processing, on a tripod to take surveillance photos.
I experienced a similarly absurd episode when taking a photo of the weathered hopper control levers of a NYC garbage truck. A sanitation worker informed me that it was not allowed to take photographs of NYC vehicles. While I was tempted to inquire what the strategic import of the garbage control levers was, I held my tongue, finished my pictures and left.
As an example of how crazy people get at photographers check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97hfxth3aas
The security response is hilarious in how differently they react when the clothing changes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxq4Y7QUdPA
(Bonus, watch the same clowns hire a limo + guys in suits jogging alongside and use that to get into a 'secure' conference site in the related video in the sidebar. Comedy gold.)
The only way to "change" anything would be to follow up with a lawsuit if they harass you and get the port authority docked some money. Anything short of that and "you lose". Not sure it is worth everyone's time to follow through with a lawsuit.
Well, for one, you might get $30,000 out of it.
For two, this is America, and you'll gain the satisfaction of standing up for your rights. That particular employee's mentality is one of the worst outcomes of the disaster that was and continues to be the 9/11 attack - the constant paranoia that's more suited to East Germany or the former Soviet Union.
For three, if enough people object and stand up for their rights, these pointless, bullshit harassment tactics might actually stop.
I can't spend a full day in jail each time I want to protest against a right abuse. I have to pick and choose my battles.
Tragedy of the commons says that even if you are right - if we ALL stood up against this it would stop.. for me specifically, it is more convenient to not. So most other people will not. And in fact I am not a photographer, so standing up for photography rights is pretty far down on my priority list.
https://youtu.be/zDYMewJN8WE?t=1225 <-- This is when the police begin talking to the cameraman, and tell him he's doing nothing illegal or wrong.
The police definitely seem like they reacted very well in this instance.
With this attitude, you are literally part of the cause of the problem.
If you're not willing to stand up for your rights, you have no basis for complaint when they are removed.
That's a bit hyperbolic. I'd wager that if most HN readers were in the same situation, they would not be in serious danger.
To be sure, I realize the initial interaction was with what presumably is a security guard and not an actual LEO. However if the OP had taken a belligerent attitude it's not unreasonable to assume that law enforcement would have become involved quickly.
Any random cop does have the ability to ruin your day, or worse, and there's jack and squat you can do about it until after the fact, if then. That's not even hyperbole - it's rational, objective fact.
I like my rights.
I can't spend a full day in jail each time I want to protest against a right abuse. I have to pick and choose my battles.
In fact I am not a photographer, so standing up for photography rights is pretty far down on my priority list.
If this is an important cause to you, I suggest you go near a nuclear plant or military base and start taking pictures. When the police come, argue loudly.
I also have a GW690ii that people ask me about all the time. I was even "stopped" by the police once (while in a somewhat precarious position to get the angle I wanted)... to tell me how cool the camera was.
Film photography is really great for meeting people in public. The world is not all bad; it's 99.9% good. But the negatives tend to have a larger effect on your world view than the positives, so you should be careful to not bias yourself away from being different.
So I was in Salt Lake, at a place where I can watch both the UTA Frontrunner (commuter rail, but heavy rail, not transit) and the freight tracks, because they're side-by-side. There are some signals on the freight tracks that tell me when something's coming, and there's a station there on the passenger rail. I park on the opposite side from the passenger platforms, in the parking area for an abandoned business.
One day these two UTA security guys came over to talk to me. They see me just sitting there watching their platform, and they're responsible for its security, so that's fine.
But when I explained that I was just there watching trains, they tried to pressure me into leaving. I told them that I was on private property, and it wasn't their private property, so I didn't care what they preferred that I do. They backed off.
I've been approached by police several times, asking what I was doing. Once I said that I was just watching trains, I was sometimes cautioned to be careful because I was in a drug trafficking area.
Once I was hassled by railroad security, but in that instance I had parked on their property, so they were not out of line. They just asked me to move my car.
Disclaimer: I am middle aged, white, and fairly conservative in appearance. I'm going to get the benefit of the doubt as much as anyone ever does.
[1] https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/photographers-what-do-... [2] http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm
But a building without a private residence is fair game.
For example: If you stand on the sidewalk and take a picture of someone sunbathing nude on their front lawn, 10 feet away. Assuming there is no fence, you're perfectly in the right.
Flip side someone sunbathing nude in their backyard with 10 foot fences, if you took a picture of them say using a drone... then they can go after you because they had a "reasonable expectation of privacy".
Same thing with famous people in their backyard and the paparazzi who get out the 800mm lenses and take pictures from the next mountain over. The famous person could reasonably expect some privacy in their backyard.
Apparently, I was near an official building, and they told me not to photograph in that street. I was told to "visit the website" if I wanted to look at pictures of that building. They then asked me to show them the pictures in order to check that I hadn't taken any photographs of that building, to which I replied that they were welcome to try, as I was using a film camera. They replied "okay, we believe you", and went away. Truly bizarre.
Ironically they do have a photo policy http://www.bart.gov/about/business/permits/photopermits which isn't that different than it used to be. Basically as long as its non-commercial and you aren't sneaking in somewhere, it's fine. However that gate employee insisted what I was doing was illegal, private property (ha! PUBLIC transit), yada yada yada.
Of course, this was only because I had a DSLR. I've taken way more informational photos with my phone and no one ever noticed.
It's not accessible directly via the street. It sits out on a long pier in the river, with a gate at the pier head. The public isn't allowed on the pier, but the gate sits along the Hudson River Greenway, a very big and very-highly-trafficked park. (With plenty of tourists)
It is common for both misinformed law-enforcement types and infrastructure agency employees (outside of the legal system) to hassle people for taking photos of infrastructure - construction sites, ventilation towers, power substations, sensitive landmarks, subway areas, aqueduct facilities, etc. As a matter of fact, since the WTC is itself treated as a VERY sensitive and vulnerable site, it seems weird for a PA employee to tell you to take pictures of it instead. The site is a fortress!
And yes, these people issuing warnings and making threats are all wrong. You can stand in a public place and take a photograph anytime, there are very few restrictions on this. It's also fairly safe; there aren't any reasonable vulnerabilities to public infrastructure that a single photograph from a public park can uncover. (If there is such a vulnerability, it's not a reasonable one; it should be mitigated through security hardening, not by hassling park-goers)
(There are, of course, many port authorities all over the world. This one is a big deal.)
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7265257,-74.0139319,158m/dat...
May need to adjust the framing a bit.
The Holland Tunnel is a civil engineering marvel, the first tunnel of its size to be built successfully. The ventilation towers are what allow cars to drive through such a long tunnel without asphyxiating the drivers. We should celebrate what we've achieved as a society, not try to hide them for vague security reasons.
That stretch of water is perfect for terrorists to mount a dam-busters style assault on that building!
What were you thinking publishing a photo like that? You'll only have yourself to blame when that building is knocked out by the bouncing bomb!
Acros seems to respond well to whatever exposure you throw at it, but it's significantly more expensive and yields identical results to Tmax when exposed carefully. (I save Acros for my pinhole pictures, where its amazing reciprocity characteristics are much appreciated.)
Tmax 400 is a little different. Basically... if you expose it to light you'll get a great picture. It's my favorite film, but if I have a tripod, I might as well aim for a little bit more resolution. In some tests I did last weekend, the MTF-limiting function of my setup is actually the film, which is a nice place to be. These used large format lenses I've randomly acquired are some fine equipment.
Who uses Google+ anymore?
Fortunately for them, it's on Google Plus.
I kid. Kind of.