Persian King
Canon EOS T1i
Posted by Amir (Tehran, Iran) on 18 August 2009 in Miscellaneous and Portfolio.
Fort Worth, TX
This is our new Camera. I was always reluctant to buy a DSLR. It's too big, heavy and outright conspicuous. I am still gonna use my lovely Canon A640, but this EOS 500D (AKA T1i in US, Kiss X3 in Japan) would be for traveling and places that taking picture is accepted and associate no danger of being arrested or harassed.
My wife had this 24-85mm Canon lens from film days, therefore we don't need to put up with cheapy kit lens.
See the original at Flickr
Visit My "TimeLaps/Panorama" Blog, Creative Camera.
If you find my photos interesting, please take a moment and vote for me at Cool Photoblogs.
Twelvebit from Victoria, United States
I got hassled outside the airport on Sunday after seeing my son off to China. I was told that "filming" made them "nervous." It really pissed me off. I was shooting all kinds of photos INSIDE the airport, including photos of the TSA people, security at the metal detectors, and other security personnel --though mostly scenes of people in the airport-- and no one said a word.
Then outside, this security guard starts hassling me about taking a photo of the outside of the building. I tell you Amir, this is a land of morons. I was openly standing there with my camera accompanied by my wife and my son's girlfriend. And why, if I was a bad guy, and I wanted photos of the airport, would I even bother to go there, when I could just download them off Google? Off the internet I can get inside shots, outside shots, and even aerial shots.
But idiots like this guard are made nervous by old men taking photos under the gaze of the airport surveillance cameras. This is exactly what they told us the Soviet Union was like when we were school children --an authoritarian country where the authorities won't even let you take photos of public buildings. Authoritarian idiots are killing this country. And for what? So the criminals running it can loot it for every last dollar before their power lust and greed destroy it?
Though it pissed me off, I offered to show my photos --and guess what....the guard wasn't interested. The "nervous" guard didn't want to see them. I told this clown that there was no law prohibiting photography in public places. I asked what law she thought I was breaking....and she replied that she didn't say I was breaking the law. So then my friend, just why was this idiot hassling me: obviously, for no other reason than to feel powerful by applying her authority.
So, yes, you do have to be careful. We are now living in a country where you have to worry about the consequences of taking photos in public places, even when there are already photos like the ones you're taking available anywhere in the world to anyone with a computer, and while the authorities fill the country with cameras to monitor your every move.
20 Aug 2009 3:26am
@Twelvebit: So true. That makes it more scary. I don't want to accept the fact that we live in this sad reality.
Canon PowerShot A640
7/10 second
F/3.2
ISO 100
8 mm