Just past noon today in San Francisco T-Mobile launched 100 professional skydivers into the skies over San Francisco as part of a promotion for their new HTC myTouch 3G phone, T-Mobile’s answer to Apple’s iPhone. The HTC myTouch 3G phone uses Google’s new Android operating system.
The skydivers (many formerly from elite military services) jumped over Justin Herman Plaza near the Ferry Building, Pier 39, Moscone Center and the Marina Green.
So one of the things in this bad economy that my wife and I try to do is to try and find lots of free things that we can do with our four children. While we have and have had family memberships at many museums and public estates (including Filoli Gardens in Woodside) over the years, we also try to take advantage of free days as well that many museums also make available. So we were pleased when we got an email this morning from Jackie@dunsmuir.org from the Historic Dunsmuir-Hellman Estate in Oakland reminding us that today was free admission Family First Sundays. You can see the email below which clearly indicates that admission today is free. They mention a tour of the estate as well (that we were not interested in) but it clearly states free admission. So after making the trek out to the estate we were disappointed when we were told at the gate that we would need to pay $18 if we wanted to get in.
Now I know what you’re thinking, so what, it’s only $18. But that’s not the point. Money’s tight right now for everyone and we’d just spent a bunch of gas money driving down there only to be told that we’d either have to pay an admission fee or be turned away. I told the woman at the gate that in their email it said that the first Sunday of the month was free but she wouldn’t have it, insisting that we pay the $18. So reluctantly I shelled out the $18 and we headed into the estate. At least I’ll be able to get some good photos out of it I thought. But then again, imagine my disappointment when we’d arrived at the estate and I saw a big “No Photography” sign in front of the estate.
Now, before heading out to see the estate I did a thorough review of their website and saw no photography prohibition anywhere on the site. What’s more, I was not told about the “no photography” policy at the front gate before they took my money when I had a extra large Canon 5D Mark II hanging around my neck. No, it wasn’t until they already had your money that they decided to inform you about this policy.
When I asked the docent Marla, why the no photo policy, she replied to me “oh, well it’s a museum.” When I told Marla that actually most museums allow photograpphy she replied back to me, “well, if we allowed photography it would slow the tour down.” Now personally I think that’s one of the lamest reasons I’ve ever heard for banning photography. I’ve had the opportunity to tour many different historic estates — Hearst Castle, the Filoli Estate in Woodside, the Pittock Mansion in Portland — and all of them have always allowed personal photography. So I was double bummed after being promised a free Sunday for my family to find that now my joy and past time of photography was also being denied.
Overall my experience touring the Dunsmuir-Hellman Estate was a terrible one. I would not recommend a visit. Especially if you are a photographer you’ll be annoyed by their photography prohibition for no reasonable reason whatsoever.
You know what else bums me out? After I got home and pulled up their website to see if they had more on their admission policy there, it says that children 11 and under are free and adults are $5. So not only did they charge me when they shouldn’t have. They even overchaged me the standard admission by charging a fee for my four children who I clearly told the person at the gate were 4, 6, 7 and 8. All four under 11. Now I know times are tough for non-profits, and for all I know maybe the ticket charger woman was simply scamming us and pocketing the money herself, but baiting and switching people promising them a free family day and then charging them $18 when they arrive is not right.
I’ve sent an email on this matter to their Executive Director Jim DeMersman and hopefully will be able to obtain a refund and also get them to reconsider their ban on photography.
If you’d like to see photos of mine from two estates with more reasonable photography policies, you can find my photos from the Filoli Estate here and from the Pittock Mansion here.
Update: I received word back from the Dunsmuir Estate. In addition to providing me a refund for my visit, they are also considering opening up the property to photography in the near future. If and when they update their photo policy I will post that here as well. Jackie Antig, their Marketing and PR Manager, sent me the following email below:
“Hello Thomas:
I understand the frustrations you face as money is indeed scarce and treasured even more so than any other time in recent history. Bearing this in mind, our staff wholeheartedly spends its time and energy thinking thoughtfully about the programs and price points we offer. We envision meaningful experiences for our community and are truly heartbroken that you left feeling unsatisfied and deceived. My earnest hope is that I may be able to shed some light onto the matters you’ve outlined.
The admission rates for our Family First Sundays are two fold as indicated by the price stratification in the notification you received. To enter the grounds to explore, picnic and enjoy the activities we offered is free. As your family saw, the Estate is an incredibly beautiful place and is befitting of quaint and intimate strolls and picnics; many people opt against going on a tour and choose to simply enjoy the setting.
The other element of the aforementioned admission structure pertains to the mansion tours. To participate in a mansion tour is $5 per adult and children under the age of 11 are free. Since your family chose to go on a docent-led tour, you were asked for admission. You should have only had to pay $10 in total for both you and your wife and your children should have been let in for free, instead of the $18 that was asked of you. Our deepest and sincerest of apologies for the confusion over this matter. I understand full well the shock that overcame you when you traversed to the Estate not expecting to pay. We will happily reimburse you in full to any mailing address you wish to disclose.
This experience is telling of the elements of miscommunication in our communication channels, both between us and our public and amongst ourselves. While there was a lot of thought invested in thoroughly articulating our admission rates, you have helped us see that more has to be done to be clear so that individuals like yourself are well informed when making choices about their time and money. Additionally, we must also make extra strides to be sure that the ticket booth attendants are fully and accurately knowledgeable about our rates and are open and hospitable to the concerns of our patrons since you noted having expressed your confusion to them right away.
With regards to our no photography policy, we are currently in the midst of reviewing it and have been for some time now. I agree with you that it needs to be reconsidered and should it remain as it is, there should be complete visibility about it in all of our key communication avenues, like our website. Photography is an art, a window into the poetic everyday experience that documents who we are as individuals and as a collective society. We are hoping that in a short time, the interior of the mansion will be part of that story through the insightful eyes of our community.
With immense sincerity,
Jackie Antig”
mrsth and I are looking forward to heading out to the opening of The Vintage Eye, East Bay Signs and Scenes show opening tomorrow night from 7-9pm at the Fingado Art Gallery in El Cerrito.
The group show features five Bay Area photographers: Devil Doll, Ken Duffy, Lila Banuelos, Neo Serafimidis and Doug Donaldson.
The show will be on display at the gallery through August 21st. The address of the gallery is 7025 Stockton Avenue in El Cerrito. As an avid photographer of neon signs myself, I’m looking forward to seeing the printed work of these other great photographers.
Sir, You Are Not Allowed to Take Pictures on Muni Property!! by What I’m Seeing.com
A few days ago I blogged about an incident of photographer harassment when SF Muni Fare Inspector #32 threatened my friend Plug1 that if he did not turn over his camera to him that he would be arrested. Subsequent to this incident, many other blogs and Bay Area sites reported on this issue as well including Boing Boing, CBS5’s Eye on Blogs, sfist, fecal face news, sfstreetsblog.org, the San Francisco Appeal, and Muni Diaries. After this incident both Plug1 and I received a response back from Judson True in the Press office of SF Muni when we requested an explanation from SF Muni.
Below is the response from Muni’s office:
“Dear Plug1—
Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your email below.
We have had internal discussions over the past few days on this topic and we have determined that photography is permitted on the Muni system, though our Fare Inspectors were performing as they believed was required of them in order to protect the safety of our customers and employees when they intervened with you and others. They will be re-trained moving forward and I will get our policy posted on our website soon.
If there are further clarifications of our policy in the coming weeks I will let you know.
Thank you for riding Muni.
Best,
Judson”
Judson forwarded this email response to me in response to my request for clarification on this issue. Judson’s response is also published over at Plug1’s blog.
Personally I think that this is a completely unsatisfactory and crappy response from SF Muni. SF Muni never apologizes to Plug1 (instead they try to cleverly apologize for the delay in responding instead in order to make it sort of sound like an apology when it isn’t one — how much do you want to bet that one of their lawyers drafted this one?).
Further, I believe that their statement that their fare inspector was performing as they believed they were required for customer and employee safety is clear and utter bull shit. There was no “safety” issue. Plug1 was no threat to anyone. If Plug1’s description of this encounter is accurate, this was simply the case of a rogue Muni Transit law enforcement agent who didn’t want his photo taken and who decided to use his position as a law enforcement agent to try and intimidate a muni customer and SF citizen. By threatening to arrest Plug1 if he did not provide his camera to the officer he abused his power entrusted to him. This is wrong and should not be tolerated.
Below is my response that I drafted a few hours ago back to Judson True. I also cc:d SF Muni’s Executive Director, Nathaniel Ford, Plug1 as well as a contact of mine at the ACLU.
“Hi Judson,
I’m still a little concerned over this incident. In your email you state: “though our Fare Inspectors were performing as they believed was required of them in order to protect the safety of our customers and employees when they intervened with you and others. ”
Why did they believe that they were required to stop this photography? How was the photographer in this case a threat to either customers or employees? Cameras don’t have bullets, nobody’s physical safety was threatened. The photographer in question was in no way impeding traffic.
Feels to me more like a photographer was bullied by a cop who made up a non-existent “safety” argument after the fact because they didn’t get away with the bullying. This sounds to me like a pretty weak excuse for a law enforcement official to demand to see a camera and a customer’s photos and to threaten arrest, pretty serious things.
While I applaud Muni’s steps for making your open photography policy clearer as well as the retraining involved, I’d still like to know more about what this officer and Muni felt the safety issue was in this case. I would also like to formally again request the identity of of Agent 32. He is a public sworn police officer, I believe that I am entitled to his name as I would be any public police officer involved in a public dispute and incident. I will likely publicize his name and other identifying information about him with regards to this incident if this issue is not resolved satisfactorily.
I think Muni should apologize to Plug1 not just for the delay in responding to the incident but for the incident itself. I think any “safety” issue needs to be clarified, and I think the officer involved ought to be disciplined for abusing his power as a law enforcement agent.
Please respond as soon as possible. I’ll be blogging more on this in the next few hours.”
Photography is not a crime and cops who treat it like it is should be disciplined.
Update: It may be that these agents are not in fact sworn law enforcement. It’s hard for me to tell but based on this Muni job description it appears that they may merely assist sworn law enforcement. I don’t think that this really changes anything in this case, but a distinction nonetheless.
Yesterday while wandering around and photographing San Francisco’s Tenderloin District I was surprised to see the gates to Cohen Alley off of Ellis Street open for the first time in as long as I can remember. Cohen Alley, which used to be one of the most filth, drug and crime infested alleys in one of the worst areas of San Francisco, has recently been renovated, reclaimed and renamed the Tenderloin National Forest complete with gardens and public art and the transformation has been nothing short of remarkable.
Tomorrow, the alley will officially open to the general public from 10am to 9pm with a day of celebration featuring numerous Bay Area artists and performers. According to the Tenderloin National Forest’s website, the public art and garden space was created to address the lack of green space in the Tenderloin. The Forest is intended to be an inspiration and model for others to attempt gardening in the inner city.
Darryl Smith, co-founder of the Tenderloin National Forest, along with two public murals from the garden.
From the Forest’s website: “The high concentration of apartment buildings in the Tenderloin gives it the densest population (people per square mile) in the city, and also the highest proportion of families and children. It is also one of the poorest, with a median family income of around $20K, a figure that is less half the overall city average. The area has a large number of immigrants from Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America, and the 2004 demographic summary stated that the Tenderloin is home to the city’s entire Cambodian population.”
I spoke with one of the co-leading artists for this project Darryl Smith yesterday and he shared with me a number of the stories behind the art in the alley. There is a wonderful stone walkway in the alley created by Portuguese muralist Rigo, who has done several other large scale public installations in the City. There are some great murals there also done by Trust Your Struggle. In addition to lots of other public art works there is a fish pond and an oven to bake bread in the garden.
Smith told me that after Saturday’s opening the Forest would be open regularly from 12 noon to 5pm every weekday. If you get a chance definitely check it out. It’s an amazingly positive space happening in an otherwise pretty rough neighborhood. I’ve got a small set of images that I took of the alley yesterday here.
Smith also told me that two of the adjacent buildings to the alley provide community housing for low-income residents and added that one of the housing units will also include housing for an artist residency program where artists can live there and work at the National Forest and on projects for brief periods of time.
Sir, You Are Not Allowed to Take Pictures on Muni Property!! by What I’m Seeing.com
It seems like day in and day out, increasingly, idiot cops and security guards continue to try and push photographers around. This most recent case is more personal to me because it hits close to home on the SF Muni and happened to a friend of mine Plug1.
Plug1 was doing his usual thing, which is documenting the hell out of daily SF life, when he was approached by an over-zealous muni transit fare cop, Fare Inspector #32.
From Plug1:
“Before I could get the 1st shot off, Fare Inspector #32 started marching towards me, hands in the air, yelling at me to STOP TAKING PICTURES!! So I put down away camera, walked towards him and answered his statement with a question. I asked him if he could cite me the specific Muni code that prohibited a Translink Card carrying passenger from taking pictures of Muni Personal on Muni Property. He could not. Instead he responded that I needed his permission and demanded to see my credentials and the pictures on my camera. He added that in fact, if I was unwilling to turn over possession of my camera to him he would seize my camera and have me arrested.”
Now first off. There is no prohibition against taking personal photographs anywhere publicly accessible in the Muni system. Public photography is allowed on both Muni and BART in the SF public transportation system. Secondly, no cop can ever make you delete images or seize your camera. Photography is a First Amendment right and they have no legal right to demand or do this. If Plug1 was arrested in this case, in fact, he’d have great material for a wrongful arrest case against SF Muni.
It sounds to me like this cop simply didn’t want his photo taken and decided to try and illegally bully Plug1 to get his way. This is an abuse of power. I hope Fare Inspector #32 is disciplined for this.
Now my own policy about shooting strangers is that if they ask me politely, 99% of the time I won’t shoot them or I’ll agree not to publish their image. In fact, over the years I’ve also taken down many images from my Flickrstream, blog, etc. when people have contacted me and asked me to take them down. On the other hand, when someone decides to be a prick about it, like this cop did, I’ll almost always publish their image and bring attention to the fact that they were being a pig — like Fare Inspector #32.
Somebody at Muni needs to inform Fare Inspector #32 that photography is in fact allowed within the muni system and that it’s an abuse of power for him to threaten paying customers with arrest over the crime of photography. Photography is not a crime.
This morning I decided to conduct a very unscientific survey of BART riders from Oakland to San Francisco to see how they consume media on their morning commute. I boarded my usual 9 car BART train at MacArthur BART station in Oakland and exited at Embarcadero Station in San Francisco. During my commute I started at the back of the train and walked through about six full cars of the train and documented what each passenger was doing on the train.
I wanted to do this survey to get a rough idea of how much old media vs. new media was being consumed on my morning commute.
All in I surveyed 239 passengers in six cars. Most all of the passengers were sitting down in seats.
Below is a breakdown on how these 239 passengers were spending their time on BART this morning.
Doing Nothing 112 = 47%
Reading a newspaper 31 = 13%
Reading a book 31 = 13%
Using a mobile device 30 = 12%
Other 16 = 7%
Reading a Magazine 12 = 5%
Using a laptop computer 4 = 2%
Using a Kindle 2 = 1%
Personally I was surprised that so many of the people on BART were simply doing nothing (this included sleeping as well). In the other category was just random stuff generally not associated with consuming media. This included people doing paperwork, a few women putting on makeup, and one woman knitting. I suspect you’d find less people sleeping on an evening train home than in the morning train on the way to work.
I was also surprised at how few people were using laptops. I use a laptop almost every single day on the commute to process photos if I can get a seat. I was also surprised to only see 2 passengers using Kindles, given all of the hype that seems to be built around that device. In total, in fact, only 15% of passengers were using “new media” devices. This makes me think that old media publishing may in fact have a longer lifespan left than we’ve given them.
It should be noted that although a paid wifi service has been announced for BART, at present it is not in operation. In general I’m able to get an AT&T signal on my own iPhone on this commute about a third of the time while the commute is above ground. When the commute is in the tunnels below Oakland and below the San Francisco Bay there is no signal. I suspect new media devices could possibly go up if/when wifi is introduced. Then again, as it stands now, BARTs wifi plan seems really expensive and this may prohibit use.
One of the 30 people using a mobile device in my numbers was me as I was using my iPhone to tabulate what people were doing as I walked through the train.
On Saturday, March 21st, 2009, four Oakland Police Officers were killed in the line of duty. A Memorial Service was held in Oakland at the Oracle Arena on Friday March 27th, 2009. Thousands of Police Officers attended the service from all over the United States. The Arena was filled to capacity and overflow attendees watched the service from closed circuit televisions at the Oakland Coliseum next door. The service was broadcast on major Bay Area television stations live. The text below is taken from the Memorial Service program:
“The men and women of the Oakland Police Department would like to thank everyone who has reached out to us during this sorrowful time. The loss of a single officer is tragic; losing four officers is overwhelming. This devastating event will forever change the lives of the families, friends and colleagues of our four fallen comrades. It is in times such as these that we realize the importance of community, family and friends, and we are grateful for the incredible outpouring of support the people of Oakland, the state, the nation and the world have shown us. We appreciate the countless cards, emails, flowers, acts of service, well wishes and prayers that have been sent our way. Sergeant Mark Dunakin, Sergeant Ervin Romans, Sergeant Daniel Sakai and Officer John Hege will be forever missed and remembered.”
Chief Howard Jordan
Trust Fund Information
Individual donations for the families can be mailed to c/o OPOA:
Attn: Renee Hassna
555 5th Street
Oakland, CA 94607
Checks should be made to the following:
“Dunakin Children’s Family Trust”
“Romans Children’s Family Trust”
“Sakai Family Trust”
Wire transfers can be made directly to Merril Lynch Accounts:
“Dunakin Children’s Family Trust”
a/c #204-04065
“Romans Children’s Family Trust”
a/c #204-04066
“Sakai Family Trust”
a/c #204-04064
You can view my photo set of images from today’s Memorial Service here.
The Key to a Photograph from Ansel Adams from SilberStudios.Tv on Vimeo.
Mark Silber, over at Silber Studios Blog, was able to obtain the rare Ansel Adams footage above. In the short clip Ansel Adams talks about visualization. The process whereby a photographer sees a photograph in their mind’s eye before and during the making of photograph.
Experiencing visualization is a powerful thing. Most of the time when I’m shooting I do not experience visualization. I shoot many, many shots every day and many of these shots are meant to be more part of a documentary river than anything for me. With many of these shots in fact I don’t really see the shot from the subject until later in post processing.
But every so often I see a photograph ahead of the actual shot. I do see it in my mind’s eyes. And these I feel are among the best photographs I’ve personally made. Every so often you see a scene or a person or an opportunity for a shot and you take it instantly recognizing that it is special and seeing the finished photograph as you view it through the viewfinder before you’ve even pushed the shutter.
I need to challenge myself to look for more of these moments and photographs. They are all around us every day. And it’s amazing when you get them. That feeling of knowing deep down inside that you really got the shot. That you’ve really created something meaningful in the seconds that surround the birth of a photo is one of the best feelings a photographer can know.
Thanks to Marc and the Ansel Adams Gallery as well for sharing with us this rare footage by Ansel Adams himself directly on the visualization process as he viewed it even so many years ago.
Last night I had an opportunity to attend and photograph Operation Aisle Style here in San Francisco at the W Hotel. The event was dubbed an Alterna-Bridal Fashion Event and in addition to an alternative wedding fashion show there was a second fashion show showcasing the designs of Project Runway contestant Austin Scarlett and lead designer Kenneth Pool. After the fashion show there was a concert by the band The Hooks.
The event was pretty packed with about 500 people in attendance. The Alterna-Bridal fashion show was put on by the Art Institute of California and featured their “rising star” fashion design students.
The Hooks had a great sound. Sort of an Irish punk rock style. Brothers Keith and Ronan Mulligan are the front men for the band. Ronan’s a spitting image double for Johnny Rotten. Colin Delaney is on drums with Willie Gregory playing bass. The Hooks are playing next in San Francisco at The Great American Music Hall’s St. Patrick’s Day Festival on March 17th. After that they are heading off to Austin to play SXSW.
If you’d like to check out my shots from last night’s events you can find my set of images of the fashion shows here and my set of images of the Hooks here.
Thanks much to Shannon Clark for getting me a photographer’s pass to this great event! Shannon helped organize what was an absolute first rate event!
