Re: [Leica] Paris & Tripod

["Steve LeHuray" <icommag@toad.net>]

> Kip Babington wrote:
>> 
>> Laurent -
>> 
>> Please pardon a US lawyer's follow up question, I'm not trying to be
>> argumentative but just to clarify your meaning.  As I read your statement
>> with my own legal background, it means that if I go to France as a tourist I
>> should just leave my camera at home, because almost any place I am likely to
>> go would be a "public place" (as that term is used in the law over
> here.)<<<<<<<<<
>
> SNIP
>
> Hi Kip,
>
> Sorry for cutting in, but I think what the intention of the law means,
> is to stop "professional photographers" from setting up tripods for
> personal gain or becoming a pain in the ass with an army of tripods
> always in the way of the tourists who come to see the high profile Paris
locations.
>
> I say this simply because, if you consider the millions of tourists who
> visit Paris and they all have cameras to take family Happy Snaps of
> themselves in front of the Eiffel Tower or wherever, the ban on picture
> taking would be so counter productive the tourist industry would hang
> the mayor and bureaucrats who came up with the law.
>
> There wasn't any indication to me by the gendarmes that I couldn't take
> pictures, they said take all the pictures you want with the camera, but
> you can't use a tripod.  And it seems the tripod is the issue, as the
> Paris government have taken that, if you use a tripod that automatically
> makes you a professional and taking pictures for monetary gain.
>
> And monetary gain is what they want themselves, as in a piece of the
> action of the money made by the professional.  Or the assumed user of
> the tripod would make.
>
> If they stopped picture taking in such a famous city as Paris, no one
> would bother going because having your picture taken by the Arc de
> Triomph or wherever is part of the visit. As in, "Here we are standing
> in front of the Eiffel Tower.
>
> While we were there I'd like to have a dollar for every camera I saw and
> most certainly a dollar for every exposure made, I could retire three
> lifetimes quite handsomely. :-)
>
> ted
>
I may be wrong about this but I think that to use a tripod on the Mall in
Washington, DC you need to get a permit from the National Park Service.
Steve
Annapolis