Login | Register

Maybe I just don’t get it, but banning pictures in the subway seems rather silly.

I agree. what is the purpose of banning pictures in the subway?

That’s the thing about moblogging—you can’t link to a nice explanatory news story. Or maybe you can.  I’m still on the learning curve. 

The MTA is proposing to ban all photography in subway trains and stations, supposedly because it is a security risk—if tourists can take pictures in the subway, then so can terrorists.  This drives me berserk.  I don’t bandy about this analogy lightly, but the last time I remember hearing anything like this, I was in summer school in Leningrad in 1987—that would be Soviet Russia, kids!  We were expressly forbidden to take pictures in the metro, on bridges, at the airport, etc.  We heard stories of students who lost all their pictures because they took a group photo at the airport, only to have a soldier pull their cameras out of their hands and expose their film.

The good news is that this new rule is not a given; the full MTA board has to vote on it, and maybe plenty of public scrutiny will embarrass them into voting no.  The bad news is that I anticipate more of this “security risk” nonsense as the Republican convention draws closer and closer.  A guy on the news said it best:  “Are they going to ban drawing on the subway, just because someone might be able to sketch a map?”

The really ironic thing is that the MTA is sponsoring an exhibit at Grand Central of photographs taken in the subways over the past 100 years—exactly the type of photography they want to ban now.  Sheesh.

The year the Wall came down (1989), my Danish friend and I drove down from Copenhagen to visit his friends in Berlin. As we crossed the border onto the autobahn, I took a picture of the guard in the booth (after all, I figured they’d be gone soon, and it was a moment of historic import). He was furious and although he didn’t confiscate the film, it was unnerving. I visited the Soviet Union in the late Seventies. Picture taking was very restricted. So, yes, scary to think that one might be arrested in New York for taking pictures. And on an another note, I had a boyfriend who used to, shall we say, “deal” in subway art. It was kind of a gonzo activity. It was when graphiti was crossing over from street to gallery. Keith Haring and Co., days. I am that old. He was always taking pictures in the subway (of the latest artistic creation) Pre-Guiliani New York.

How can they possibly expect to enforce a law like that with so many people having cell phone cameras? And once the SenseCam comes out, it will be nearly impossible to stop picture-taking anywhere, which to me is a good thing.