Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/12/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Leonard J Kapner offered wisely: >> This "incident" was a non-confrontational, congenial dialogue about a > > commonly-shared problem, and was resolved in a pleasant, respectful > > manner. If I had become argumentative or defensive, I suspect the > > situation might have turned out differently.<<<< Hi Len, Well done, well done!!!! A perfect situation where you still succeeded getting your pictures without pissing the officer off. It's almost impossible to win a confrontational police situation. Why? They got the guns! They got the Law! They have the authority! Nothing is gained by getting yappy and waving the "I have rights" banner as that only pisses them off more. Far more is gained by being polite in a friendly manner. In other words more things are gained with honey and cream than being a loud mouth freedom to do whatever you think you have the rights and freedoms to do. Yep and sometimes you may well be absolutely in your constitutional rights, whatever the hell that is, but getting all snotty and yappy is going to get you nothing but a trip to the judge in the back seat of a cruiser. And yep they may well let you out the jail door 5 minutes later. But do you know what? Even if yer right, you wont have any pictures!!! Be smart, be quiet, get along because the ultimate goal is having pictures. I'll admit I've had to deal with severely intelligence challenged security people of all stripes and I've ended up with teeth marks in my tongue to avoid the fateful back seat of a cruiser where you see your competition shooting the good stuff you could have had, if you only kept your mouth shut. Look, if you run into a situation where you are told to move back, leave, whatever due to the " police officers think you could be in danger," that's only their opinion not necessarily the truth. Don't argue, think smart!! Get out the 300mm, a 1.4 or 2 times extender and look for a better angle, maybe higher up, any shot that allows you to do an end run and come home with successful photographs. But whatever you do don't argue!! It will get you nothing. The long lenses aren't just for football and photographing birds! The other side is, the yapping smart ass photographer giving the officer a hard time is also giving all of us a bad name with the police, which inturn produces a police attitude of "damn photographers are nothing but a pain in the ass!" And the next time they have to deal with any photog situations, we are on the bottom of the barrel before we even get a chance to explain what we'd like to do. Don't argue and whatever you do.... "Don't challenge their authority!! Yeah yeah I know some of you guys are going to come back about your rights to freedom of the press, constitutional rights and all that crap! Trust me you may have all the freedoms in the world, however shooting your mouth off at just the right-wrong time is only going to get you an un-exposed roll of film whether you like it or not. Len, a great job of handling a situation that could've been totally non-picture time. Good on you lad. ted "DOCTORS' WORK" Leica book www.islandnet.com/~tedgrant Ted Grant Photography Limited - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html