Some of this is a little stale, and some is off-topic ... my
intent here is not to restart the thread, but to do a little
summing up. Not in the sense of trying to get the last word,
but in the sense of answering questions and implied questions
that I hadn't gotten around to answering, and filling in a wee
bit of info learned later...
I got the contact sheet back from that roll of film I shot in
the fog, the one that got me detained by the Baltimore police.
I also drove back down to the harbour in clear weather to find
out which building is the Baltimore WTC.
You cannot see the building in the shot, at least not on the
contact sheet. If the shadow on the far left of the frame turns
out to be the edge of the building, and if the lab is able to
bring out any detail in the 8x10 I ordered, I'll let folks know.
But I don't think the building itself actually enters the frame,
and this was with a 24mm lens, so I had to be pointed a decent
angle away from the building. You can barely see the pedestrian
bridge that I was interested in (though there's a little more
detail on the neg than on the contact).
An illuminated sign which was unreadable in the fog (in person
and on the negative) turns out to _say_ "World Trade Center",
but all it said that night was, "There's a glowing circle here."
All in all, I got seven other shots on that roll that I'd really
like to see enlarged ifwhen I come up with some extra money for
printing. And most of the stuff worth looking at twice was from
what I shot at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in Catonsville.
(Two frames show the front of the church in halfway decent
detail, with other prominent features blurry in the background,
and an orange glow on one side of the building (probably Na
vapour lamps?) and a greenish blue glow on the other (Hg vapour
lamps?). The two different colours on opposite ends of the
photo looks kind of nifty to me. I also got a cool backlit
tree. None of the street scenes in Catonsville were worth
printing. Live and learn. The Power Plant at the Inner Harbor,
with its ESPN Zone and Hard Rock Cafe neon, which I shot just
before the frame that got me in trouble, might be interesting
printed large.
Seven "worth a second look" out of 24 exposures was better than
I'd expected from that roll, honestly.
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 07:51:23 -0500
From: Paul Stenquist <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Yesterday, the FBI issued a terrorist alert warning to local
> law enforcement agencies. The warning stated that information
> had been received indicating a possible terrorist attack at a
> harbor location and asked all agencies to go on high alert.
Okay, that may explain part of it. Interesting that the cops
never said anything about that to me.
> think they're obligated to question anyone doing something out
> of the ordinary. To someone who is not a photographer, taking
> pictures in the fog at an odd hour might seem out of the
> ordinary.
Admittedly I have a poor sense of the ordinary, but ...
> And how could they be sure that you weren't doing
> something else?
They never asked about anything else, they never asked any
questions that could be used to find out wether I was doing
anything else, and they specifically said the problem was that I
took a photo of the World Trade Center.
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 18:20:28 -0600
From: Stan Halpin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> on 11/22/02 6:51 AM, Paul Stenquist at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> until the terorists are all behind bars, we're
>> going to have to tolerate a level of scrutiny that we're not accustomed to.
>
> No we don't. There is no reason to be tolerant of idiocy.
I'm trying to resist including too much political commentary in
this message, but I can't resist tossing in a "Hear! Hear!"
response to Stan's concise comment. Paul's right too, to a
point, and I explained the the police sergeant on the way back
to my car, that the geek class, at least, will generally be much
more tolerant of inconveniences that are _useful_ in increasing
safety, but are going to be really annoyed at Stupid S###.
(And some of us are going to be persnickety about situations we
perceive as impinging on our civil rights, even when they're not
stupid.)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 07:56:49 EST
> So Glen, you've got to paint the rest of the picture.
> Exactly what time was it and how were you dressed? <g>
> It might have a bit to do with what happened.
3:50 AM. I was wearing a faded demin below-the-knee skirt and
probably a black long-sleeve knit top (I don't remember for sure
about the top), with black slippers that could pass for loafers
at a distance. (Like I said, I wasn't really dressed to be seen
out; when I left the house the plan was to be out of the car
only long enough to drop something in a mailbox at a post
office.) Since I hadn't planned to be out in the weather that
long, I hadn't worn my cape.
It did occur to me that being unusually dressed might have been
part of it, but it struck me quite strongly at the time that
that was not at all the "vibe" I was getting from them. I'll
never know for sure, of course.
From: "Amita Guha" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 08:52:25 -0500
> Of course, as a person of Indian origin I figured I was being
> profiled, but from your story it sounds like anyone with a
> camera is a potential suspect. :P
Uh, I keep forgetting just how Mediterranean I look (and that
not all of the Mediterranean countries are on our friendly
list). The detective did ask my ethnic background, and I was
not (am not) sure whether that was a standard question or based
on how I look.
(The next day I realized how I should've answered: "I am
ethnically American, specifically a Marylander. That is how I
was raised and that is my identity." After all, while I was
raised with an _awareness_ of my WASP and Greek heritages, and
learned the Greek alphabet, a few greek phrases, and the King
Arthur legends as a child, I wasn't "raised Brit" or "raised
Greek". I was raised to think of myself as an American.)
From: "Evan Hanson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:44:32 -0500
> Collin, I think some of the paranoia comes from the way our
> leaders repeatedly describe the current situation.
*nod*
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 13:42:26 -0600
From: Dan Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> I wonder if that big ol' bushy beard tipped the scales in any
> fashion (or have you shaved it recently?).
Yah, I've still got the bushy beard...
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 07:22:36 +1100
From: Kevin Waterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> This sounds quite an ordeal.
I'm pretty upset about it, and it was stressful, but in all
honesty I don't think it quite reaches the "ordeal" level. It
was an annoyance. A BIIIG annoyance, and angry-making. The
scary part isn't the immediate stress and fear that morning, but
the implications for life in my country in general.
[important stuff snipped to save me from the temptation to get
even more political again...]
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 15:07:41 -0500
From: Herb Chong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> *nod* Yes. As I said to one of the cops: if I wanted to
>> shoot a building like that, I'd use a little P&S that fit in
>> my pocket. It'd be out of the pocket, fired, and back in the
>> pocked quickly enough that I probably wouldn't be seen doing
>> it, and who thinks twice about a P&S anyhow? (I'd also do it
>> in daylight, in a crowd.)
>
> and just to be sure, to bring accomplice to take pictures of
> too, with really 'orrible composition, to be sure...
A non-photographer friend was saying that if he were doing recon
like that, he'd take a child along and get the child to do
something cute in between him and the building, thus providing a
perfectly _ordinary_ reason for the camera to be pointed
thataway.
While I fully expect a few followups, I hope this doesn't spark
a really large flurry of off-topic political arguments. I
certainly want to mouth off about the politics, but I'll try to
do most of that in places it's not off-topic for. Mostly, I
didn't want to leave folks hanging when I didn't get around to
responding earlier.
-- Glenn
