Amateur photo- graphers and indep- endent film makers looking to chronicle bird life, take snapshots in Times Square or capture the distinctive thrum of New York’s streets will not need to obtain permits or insurance under new rules being proposed by the Bloomberg administration.Mayor to Ease Permit Rules for Capturing City’s Image
The rules, to be released on Tuesday for public comment, would generally allow people using hand-held equipment, including tripods, to shoot for any length of time on sidewalks and in parks as long as they leave sufficient room for pedestrians.
The new rules, which officials said reflect longstanding practice by the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting, are meant to distinguish between photographers and filmmakers who generally do not create congestion or unsafe conditions and those from major television, film and print productions that generally do. But instead of basing permit requirements on the number of people and the length of time involved in the shoot, the new proposal focuses on the level of sidewalk obstruction.
9 comments:
Say "Cheese".
"...looking to chronicle bird life?"
Won't be able to do much of that with all of the trees nearly gone.
Soon all there will be left will be pigeons, rats, and cockroaches. What delightful subjects to photo!
What "level of sidewalk obstruction"
do the new rules cover?
Me and my camera and relatively slim body
surely pose no "obstruction".
As for some of those corn fed tourists
(standing usually three abreast)
from Des Moines....with butts out to Nebraska.....
that's another matter.
These people can't even walk properly in NYC.
City regulations should require
"wide load" signs to be affixed to their asses!
One time I saw two rookie undercover cops being trained by another giving a ticket to a european tourist for taking a picture of a tile mosaic at City Hall station. Hell of a welcome to New York.
It's about time.
Here's an idea:
If you want anarchy, pass laws and regulations so stupid and arrogant (and obvious violations of Constitutional rights) that those laws and regulations will be routinely (and correctly) ignored by all.
Then, gradually, all laws and regulations - good or bad - will be routinely ignored.
Good government requires passage of only those laws and regulations that can and will be enforced.
See tax, immigration and campaign finance laws for some examples. See also NYC DOB.
It is NOT illegal to take a flick
of subway mosaics.....having documented
all subway lines myself....about 10 years ago.
Both the IRT & BMT
became city owned, I believe, in the 1940s.
(Before that, they were privately owned
except for the city built and owned IND).
That cop was breaking the law!
In between casual photographers and professional filmmakers are the film students. How will this law treat them? Should a student making a film for a class be subject to the same regulations are Martin Scorcese and Robert DeNiro?
Most film students that I've spotted shooting,
are using small "Ariflex" 16 mm cameras.....
ether hand held or with a compact tripod.
It doesn't look like they should pose any
congestion problems....but then again.....
who the hell knows how NYC will see this.
No matter what form they pass this new regulation in, it WILL be used by cops to hand out more tickets to meet their quota. The city wants any excuse it can think of to hand out more tickets and generate more revenue.
But what do i know, I'm just some guy who got a ticket for standing on a public street with a camera...
angrynyer.com
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