Almost arrested photographing a wedding

Last night, while driving out of the wedding reception at Wright Patt Air Force Base in Dayton, I stopped by to snap some pics of some display aircraft at the entrance of the installation. I thought these images would merit a placement somewhere in the wedding album.

As i started to snap away, a security guard came over and asked if I took pictures of the building behind the airplanes. You can sort of see the building in the reflection of the airplanes stands. I answered yes, to which he replied that it was a Headquarters building and I was prohibited from photographing it and that he was going to confiscate the camera or the media unless I deleted the images and showed him that I was deleting them. If I didn’t comply, the next steps would be to get the police involved. I was about to drop some Burt Krages “science with defiance”on his comment, but thought better of it. The guard had me delete several shots and the situation quickly deescalated.

Here is the issue I have with this situation, first the building was sufficiently blurred out so you couldn’t distinguish it from the others. I positioned the planes in such a way so as to cover the name on the building. Second, the building can be photographed from the public road outside of the entrance and is in plain sight for all public. Third and the kicker, is that I used to work at this same building two years earlier.

Of course, none of this would have mattered as the security guard was just doing his job and the less thought that is involved and more “by the book” ‘Yes sirs’ the better for both of us. Just shows that the discretion is a better part of the photographer’s day.

This is very reminiscent of my trip to Monaco where I had to ask the permissionof the local officials prior to photographing anywhere in the Monaco proper. Here is an image of me in front of the Monte Carlo Casino in downtown Monaco.