This was on a photo group.
So yesterday I was walking around downtown Pittsburgh with my camera.
When I found myself next to the PPG building, I pointed my camera
upward
like a tourist and took a shot.
(If you've ever seen a skyline shot of Pittsburgh, you've seen this
building; it's the distinctive mirrored one with the points on top.
If you're a photographer, you've probably seen a shot of the
Pittsburgh
skyline, since it's the best view east of the Mississippi.)
I had time to shoot *one* frame before I heard, "Excuse me, sir,
but they
don't like it when people take pictures of this building."
I looked over and saw the private security guard there. I said,
"Um, oh.
Okay. That's kind of too bad, isn't it?"
"Excuse me?" he said.
"It's a public area," I said.
"Well, technically it's private property."
"It's open to the public," I said, looking around at the hundreds
of people
milling around and/or playing in the fountain. "Are you telling me
to leave?"
"Well, no."
"All these other people are taking pictures, too."
"Well, they don't mind eye-level stuff, but when you point the
camera up, they
start to get nervous. Since 9/11, you know, terrorism."
At this point, I lept on my opportunity. "Oh!" I said, a shocked
look on my
face. "Is it a secret building? Because if it is, I'll stop."
"What?"
"The building. Is it a secret? Because I really thought the cat
was out of
the bag already, since you can see it from ten miles in every
direction, but
if it's a secret I'll stop. I wouldn't want to be the one to get
the word
out to the terrorists about it."
At this point he realized it was a rhetorical question. "I don't
know, sir,
that's just what they tell me."
"You know it sounds absurd, right?"
"Well, I don't know about that."
"You said that eye-level pictures are okay."
"Yes."
"So if I go around taking pictures of the best places to plant
explosives,
or ways to break into the building, that's okay, but if I take a
shot of
the 25th floor, which I can't reach, that's bad. This kind of
tells me
the policy isn't very well thought out."
"I don't know, sir. That's what my boss says I'm supposed to say."
"Well, I guess you're just doing your job, but I'm not going to
stop unless
you order me off the property. I mean, the police don't seem to
have any
problem with it." (There were police visible, who were entirely
uninterested
in my activities.)
He shrugged, clearly not knowing how to respond to that. At that
point, I
walked away from him, and he did not pursue.