This summer I was planning to go and visit Florida but guess what I’ll pass. A friend that went on vacation to New York last week got his memory cards confiscated at the customs upon arrival, it seems now that for security reason they can freely take your digital media, pend rives, memory cards, laptops and so they can scan the content on to check for who knows what!!! Like a terrorist would bring his evil plans on a pen drive in PDF format, yeah right!

He was so pissed about that and since I’d bring my laptops, external drives, MC, SD and other storage medias I rather have no one snoop in my personal property but me and my family.

This is BS.

Generally speaking, if you’re taking a picture from PUBLIC LAND (street, sidewalk, etc) then no one has any right to stop you. If some security guard attempts to detain you, that’s unlawful. If they take your camera, it’s theft. if they force you to delete a picture in lieu of detention, it’s destruction of property.

Here’s the best rule to think about when shooting buildings: If it can be seen in a public space, you can take all the pictures you want. And barring identifiable people in the picture, you can sell that picture. To use the example in the story, you could walk up to the guggenheim, take a nice picture, go home, post-process, make it B&W — and then sell that picture on your website. All legal.

I strongly suggest everyone take a look at this fantastic review of the legal rights of photographers. I always carry a copy of it in my bag.

http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm

Thanks,
-Dave

Still Photography and Permits
On US and California Public Land

By Jeff Conrad for the Large Format Page