At a protest by photographers, you see things like a guy taking pictures of a guy taking pictures of a few more guys taking pictures of each other. There was such a protest on Sunday, but it might take hundreds of pages to describe it, given all the pictures that were taken, each one worth at least a thousand words.
The photographers -- about 100 of them -- gathered to express their outrage at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's proposed ban on taking pictures in the subway system.
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Meeting at Grand Central Terminal, they rode the trains for upward of an hour, shutters clicking, flashes popping, in a filmed rebuke to the idea that photography is somehow a national security threat.
"The point is really to make everyday people wake up and realize that photographers are not terrorists," said Joe Anastasio, who organized the event. "In the last few years, photographers near anything vaguely important have been getting harassed."
Anastasio went on to tell the story of a friend who took his wife's picture near the Whitestone Bridge, only to be called in for questioning by the police. He told another of a man caught snapping pictures at a Metro-North station who was interrogated for nearly two hours by authorities at the scene.
"The paranoia," he said, "has gone a little too far."
The transit authority's proposal, posted on its Web site, says the agency is planning to adopt "a general prohibition against photography and videotaping in the system." The agency is soliciting public comment on the ban and plans to vote on the proposal in the next few months.
"It's a security measure," said a spokeswoman for the agency, Deirdre Parker. "It was suggested by the NYPD."
Anastasio and his fellow photographers said it was ridiculous that pictures of the subway might somehow make the trains unsafe. After all, they said, there are thousands of subway photographs already on the Internet.
"The subway is so well documented that what's the point?" asked Jean Miele, a fine art and commercial photographer. "This sort of thing makes us less free, not safer."
Infuriated that his photographic rights might in fact be curtailed, Anastasio sent messages to several friends, asking them to show up on Sunday to photograph the subway. They did -- with Nikons, Leicas, Canons and such.
There were an US$8,000 digital job and a cheap mini that showed a nudie picture through its viewfinder.
When a downtown No. 6 train arrived, the photographers began to cheer. They boarded in a herd and held their cameras up, taking pictures of other hands holding cameras up.
At the 14th Street station, they split into two groups, stood against the walls and photographed each other across a corridor.
There was a tense moment when the crowd decided it would photograph a transit police dispatch station at 14th Street. A startled officer came out and suggested that they leave.
"You didn't say `Cheese!"' one of the cheekier photographers said.
Many of the photographers said they planned to post their pictures on the Internet -- Jared Skolnick, for example, who takes pictures of the subway on his cellphone and then displays them online.
"I've learned that so many crazy things can happen on the subway," said Skolnick, who paused and then added, "including this."
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the