Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/06/13

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Subject: [Leica] First PAW / "Asking permission" thread
From: Carl Pultz <cpultz@earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 00:29:26 -0400

Folks,

I've posted a couple photos for your consideration, and a bit of text to 
clarify my intent. Any comments you'd share are welcome.

http://home.earthlink.net/~cpultz/PAW/PAW1.htm

I've been following the KISS discussion with great interest, and have 
learned a lot from the various views and national perspectives.

I had a 'permission' experience a couple weeks ago. To get familiar with 
the new Leica, I've been carrying it a lot, including around the 
neighborhood while walking my dog. One evening, the sun was setting in a 
clear sky and the wooden fence around the yard of a nearby house looked 
great. I stopped and took a few pictures of the fence, a six foot tall 
barrier you can not see through, of the shadows thrown against it, from the 
sidewalk which it runs along. Pretty.

The next evening, a cop stopped by to say that the owner of the house had 
seen me take photos of his back yard and was concerned about why I was 
doing that and was not comfortable coming over to ask. I explained that I 
could not see his yard and did not enter his property. The cop agreed there 
was no legal prohibition against picturing a publicly visible inanimate 
object. The officer said that he would inform the guy that I was not 
spying, nor meant to harass. He was very cool and evenhanded, just helping 
to diffuse someone's fear.

The next day, I dropped off a nice print and a letter explaining that there 
is such a thing as beauty found in common places.

It made me reflect that people are very on edge in the US now. They put 
flags everywhere, like Transylvanians hanging garlic above the door to ward 
off werewolves, or as talismans to reassure each other "your okay, I'm 
okay." And some folks, in this terribly violent society, grow up with such 
suspicion of others, their first response to any encounter is defensive. Or 
offensive. Any action they don't understand is a threat.

Maybe folks in other countries, or other neighborhoods, have come to expect 
officials to be agents of repression, but I never had. They've been more 
like Officer Friendly who chatted so amiably on my lawn. But, I admit that 
the climate has become much less comfortable in the land of freedom, for 
complacent middle-class me and, seemingly, everyone. No one can escape the 
cold clutch of fear anymore.

We fear those who would protect us as much as those vaguely defined 
enemies. The loss of innocence fueling my foreboding did not begin on 9/11, 
but in December, 2000, and the world has not felt the last effect of that 
bipartisan tragedy, either.

Carl

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