The NPPA and Amtrak have been been at odds recently over the railroad’s policies towards photography. The issue was brought to light on the Cobert Report recently which was written about in a story on the NPPA Web site.
I was aware of the Colbert video, but hadn’t had the time to actually view it. When the link was forward to me again (with my daily dose of jokes from co-worker Paul Tople) I gave it a look see. The video does a great job of shining a light where it is needed. (Note: video starts after a three second Comedy Central logo loads)
It comes up short in lauding NPPA’s efforts to correcting this issue, but that was clearly not the mission here. I think everyone of us has been accosted by the “camera police” at one time or another while trying to do our jobs. NPPA has taken a lot of grief in recent years over a myriad of issues from its critics, but the issue of access clearly is not one of them. This is an area where NPPA shines.
I’m sure there are many photographers in Ohio who see a headline over an access issue and think Amtrak, subways, etc, don’t pertain to me, but in the big picture they clearly do. In the Amtrak case it took comedy to bring the matter to the attention of the masses. In time perhaps this will filter down and other people will “get it” and we won’t need to deal with the camera police on a routine basis.
We all know there are too many people besides our editors who are telling us where to go.