Andy Carvin has a post on his blog detailing how he was almost arrested for taking photos at Union Station in Washington, DC.
Apparently, three security guards told him three different reasons why photography is not allowed in Union Station. He finally got to speak to a supervisor whose business card identified him as Robert H. Mangiante, Assistant Director, IPC International Corporation. They were told “Pack up and leave, or you will be arrested”. Mr. Carvin handled the situation perfectly, as far as I am concerned.
First of all, in a private space, of course management has the right to determine what can and cannot be done in the space. However, to me, Union Station is something in between a public and a private space. It may be owned by a private company, but it is open to anybody, and sees many, many people come through it every day. Their web site even promotes it as a tourist destination, and guess what? Tourists == photography! The only mention of photography on their web site states “If you are interested in utilizing Union Station as a production site, please fill out this application and return it to our office for prior authorization.” And judging by the comments on the blog post, they generally allow photography and have established a precedent of allowing non-commercial photography. There are no signs posted. There is no clear policy forbidding non-commercial photography on their web site.
Now I am not saying that they are wrong to have rules and enforce their rules. But they really do need to be clearer about what is and is not acceptable. Their own employees don’t understand the policy — how can the public be expected to understand what is expected of them? Rather than arbitrarily threaten random photographers, why not refer them to a PR person, or assist them to get whatever permission is required? It seems that would be a much better move for a place that considers itself the most popular tourist destination in the nations capitol.
IPC is just another one of those private security companies like Securitas and Wackenhut that pay their “guards” the bare minimum and provide them with no training and tell them whatever they want and make them enforce it as “the law” or they’ll be fired. Don’t blame the lowly guards for this, most of them don’t give a shit but don’t want to be fired.
I really don’t get what the big deal is about taking pictures. People get so hung up about it. I’ve been asked to stop taking pictures in certain places as well. Granted most of them were private places, in which case I just stopped, or put my lens cover on. But in any place that is remotely public, I’ve never really paid much attention to people that ask me not to take pictures. Like Brian said, most of the rent-a-cops are guys that don’t really care about the issue anyway. They just want to keep their job so I just smile and nod and move on. If I want the picture enough, I’ll just come back a few minutes later or just take them and pretend like I don’t speak English.