222: The Subversive Diaries – Distorted Perspective

Distorted Perspective

After completing my last post I sat back to listen to some music from my past. The music was folk music of the early sixties. Folk music of that era was a bit spoken based on the performer’s view of the distorted perspectives of the time. As I listened I was reminded of the first time I was accused by government officials of being an active anti American intelligence agent.

Let me set the stage, it is the early sixties. We are in the midst of the Cold War. The Russians are putting missiles in Cuba (Cuban Missile Chris). The John Birch Society was recently organized (1958) and extremism runs rampant. Me, I am in college and the Hippie era is in it birth pains, so college kids were under great scrutiny.

As a diversion, I was spending some time listening to foreign broadcast. If you made detailed notes on a specific broadcast and sent that information to the broadcaster they would generally return a card to confirm your hearing the station. Collecting these cards demonstrated your expertise and the reports helped the broadcaster see how well his signal was heard in various areas.

One day as I was leaving class I stopped by the campus post office to pick up my mail. When I opened by post office box, I was confronted by two FBI agents. It seems Radio Moscow had returned a nice listeners package in addition to a normal conformation card. The G-men wanted to know what was in the package I got from Moscow. When they learned it had to do with radio, they wanted to search my room for a “spy” transmitter. No transmitter was found. Times have changed, back then all the shows involved “spy” radios, now it is photography. But, the distorted perspective has not changed.

The song that brought this to mind was “The John Burch Society” by the Chad Mitchell Trio. As in insight: WCTU -> Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.



And so it is Documenting the Human Condition.

221: Terrorist Target

Let me clarify something, I take terrorism and terrorist very seriously. I do however think that in many cases we loose sight of reality. I think photography is one of those areas. On NCIS every time Special Agent Gibbs raids a terrorist hideout the walls are covered with pictures of the intended target. This suggests photographers are terrorist. Is it possible we need to regulate cameras (including Cell Phones) as we do guns? Then only the bad guys will have cameras and cell phones.

As a satirical look at the situation, Let me show you the last image I shot before I got my recent cease and desist order (see post 219) based on the possibly of terrorist reconnaissance.

Terrorist Target?

219 Pano -- OOPS!!

Went back to the hospital campus again today. I decided to shoot a different view of the Endless Hallway (Post 209). The following for instructional purposes for others.

OOPS Hallway

First one needs to understand the layout of the hall. From about the position of the black car the hallway travels to the right in a straight line. From the black car traveling left it is a quarter of a circle. The intended image was to reflect the hallway being The same height to the left of the car and trail off sharply to the right. Boy did I goof.

First I was on a correct line (perpendicular to the circle) But a car was in the way so I could not get to the center of the arc of the hall, putting me at different distances from the various sections of the curved hallway. Then to reduce the number of exposures I used a very wide angle lens. This lens made the hallway on the far left seem to fall away due to the perspective of the wide angle lens (this focal length did have the desires result on the straight section to the left.)

The sad part is, this image may never get done correctly done due to a cease and desist order by hospital security. It is possible that I might get approval to shoot some more but it is going to require a lot of paper work. The bright side is I have been confronted by the police only twice this month for taking pictures.

So what is a photographer to photograph without being confronted by the police.

And so it goes -- Documenting The Human Condition

signed
OSAMA-BEN-ELMO

200: Reflections

7 of ?

Reflections

As the fire dies down we see some of the item left behind when the homeless left the tent city. As they knew not of where they might go or what they might need when the got there along with the limited ability to move stuff many of their daily use items were left behind. It was heart wrenching to watch Bob leave, what had been his home for the past six years, for the last time. Bob was followed closely by Maggie, his dog (See Post 23), Maggie had the look of something is wrong and I think it us going to be bad.

Reflections on other related issues. In the time since 911 scrutiny of photographers has increased drastically. Some times the police have really gone overboard. One instance comes to mind of a photographer was arrested and taken to jail for photographing in a subway station. The photographer was taking picture for a photo contest sponsored by the subway company. I have always defended law enforcement's rights to stop and ask what you are doing. I have done this frequently on various photography forums. That is the reason I never minded when the police stopped and asked what I was doing on my photo excursions.

In taking pictures in Monroe for the past ten years the police have never said anything to me except for one occasion when someone (so they said, now I wonder) called 911 and reported a sniper on the Skyway Bridge, that is until recently. I even wrote the police Chief a letter commending her on the professionalism of her department during the event. Generally every time I see a law enforcement officer I take the time to tell them "thank you for doing a thankless job." I have always supported law enforcement up to now, but no longer.

As I just eluded to in the previous paragraph the situation has recently changed. In the month of November I was questioned 13 times all by city police. I had attributed this to me letting my hair and beard grow long. A friend pointed out to me that my hair and beard has been long a lot longer that that. As the paper noted the police department has been putting the contrived eviction together for a couple of months. I now realize that due to my association with the local homeless, I, like the homeless, have become a victim of police harassment.

Welcome to Dodge City