Campaign off to a Roaring Start - Keep at It!
We’ve had an incredible first week - major pieces in The New York Times and on WNBC-TV News. Our ePetition is close to 10,000 signatures after only a few days online. More than 450 people thronged the north side of Union Square Friday evening with real cameras, our prop cameras and cheers for a First Amendment Rally led and organized by Rev. Billy and Savitri D. The rally joined our fight against the Mayor’s onerous camera rules with other beleaguered First Amendment causes in New York City like bike riding, freedom of speech, dancing and assembly. We cheered on civil rights lawyer Norm Siegel, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, the Church of Stop Shopping singing the First Amendment song and Beka Economopoulos, Jem Cohen and Queen Juliana describing the devastating effects the Mayor’s proposed rules will have on New York’s photographers.
Saturday’s New York Times and WNBC’s 11pm newscast Friday follow other favorable write-ups in Metro NY, ArtNet, the Village Voice, TreeHugger and the Gothamist. The New York Times featured a great photograph of intrepid artists with the fabulous prop Bolex cameras. WNBC’s two-minute story bulletted our major points with reporter Pei-Sze Cheng reporting live on location in Union Square, including an interview that made our Camera Wars connection: as the city attempts to take our cameras away, it simultaneously plans to put up thousands of surveillance cameras in our beloved city. We can’t watch them - but they can watch us.
It’s great news, but we haven’t gotten word one from the Mayor’s Office that the rules will be changed, or public comments extended. So we have to keep up the pressure. We’ve got less than a week. Sign the petition. Upload a short YouTube Video Comment. Write letters to the Mayor’s Office. And please reach out to your friends and colleagues to do the same.
- posted Sat., Jul 28, 2007 at 1:01pm
- filed in About Us
- [18] Comments
July 28th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
I don’t normally sign a lot of petitions but this is one of the dumbest pieces of legislation I’ve ever heard of. The artistic loss of work because of not being able to afford to shoot in NYC, much less the ramifications of such will be catastrophic for artists and public alike. There are a number of institutions that teach visual media such as TV, film, and photography that are attended by students who risk considerable financial serfdom who pay exorbitant tuition to be able to have access to the variety of points of inspiration that NYC offers, not to mention the out of state taxes. To insist on such a measure is like a slap in the face of students (like my friend Krysta) who attend school in NYC.
July 28th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
As of this writing, the link to the petition is wrong due to a mistyped URL.
The correct URL is:
http://www.petitionny.org/petition/index.php
July 28th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Um, I mean, it’s:
http://www.pictureny.org/petition/index.php
July 28th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
THX John Woo!
ePetition link corrected - and it is indeed http://www.pictureny.org/petition/index.php
July 29th, 2007 at 10:22 am
geez!!! what kind of nazi shit is this!!! I’m passing this site to everyone I know, thanks for the fight everyone.
best,
steve
July 30th, 2007 at 5:42 am
It is one of my greatest joys to walk around the city and take pictures. I always have a camera with me, because you never know what you might see here. I am a native New Yorker, yet still enjoy the energy that flows through the city. We are a great cultural city…how can we put restrictions on creativity?
July 30th, 2007 at 9:21 am
I’m a freelance photographer whose main source if income — portraits of actors & musicians shot on the Brooklyn waterfront or downtown — would be seriously imperiled by this legislation. A friend of mine who’s a local teacher has suggested that organizing a 311 effort, overwhelming the city’s phone lines on a particular day about a particular issue, has worked well for her colleagues in terms of overturning ridiculous education initiatives. A week isn’t much time, but it could be a good one-two punch in combination with the petition…
July 30th, 2007 at 9:29 am
See the case I instigated on behalf of “street artists,” including photographers: Bery v New York: BERY V CITY
see aksiL BERY
July 30th, 2007 at 11:28 am
I am not trying to be a smart-ass or anything, but has anyone here actually seen the proposed rules? I am not talking about someone else’s interpretation of the proposal (the sky is falling!), but the actual rules?
July 30th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Yes Jack Barker, and you can read them too.
Linked on this site under About The Rules, the complete eleven page pdf
“Complete Text of the Proposed Regulations”
http://www.pictureny.org/?cat=12
July 30th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
The facebook campaign has begun
http://swarthmore.facebook.com/group.php?gid=3642890811
July 30th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Fantastic Sarah! Bring on the facebook frenzy and myspace mania my friends…
July 30th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
where can i get one of those cardboard cameras here in LA? I’d love to glavanize some west coast support for the cause. truly, bryan.
July 31st, 2007 at 4:16 am
[…] if you get a second, please sign this petition and visit this site and for the more eloquent(or crass) feel free to write to the man himself. Because it’s not […]
July 31st, 2007 at 6:32 am
Ah, once again the powers that be have decided the best way to protect the throngs of tourists and new residents who come each year is by destroying the very things that made them come in the first place. Anyway, thanks, despite being in this business I probably woulnd’t of heard about this until it was to late. Thanks for spreading the word. I’m sending everyone your Way. Good Luck
July 31st, 2007 at 6:36 am
I have been a street photographer ever since taking a workshop with Garry Winogrand in 1977 at the Germain School of Photography on Nassau Street, and the subject that inspires me more than any other place is New York City. Walking down the street with my Leica and shooting away is like breathing. Taking away my right to photograph on the streets of New York would be personally devastating.
July 31st, 2007 at 7:25 am
Keep up the pressure, guys!
Now we’ve gotta work on getting the Port Authority to recognize the First Amendment as well. I HATE the fact that they enforce no picture taking from the scenic walk along the George Washington Bridge. What is wrong with these people!!!???
August 1st, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Check this out, a reminder about pictures that the mayor didn’t want the public to see: http://villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/2007/08/making_you_shut.php