Natural Boundaries

Posted by Twelvebit (Victoria, United States) on 17 September 2007 in Architecture.

The biggest city I usually have the opportunity to photograph in is Austin. Wow, is the atmosphere there ever different than it is in Houston.

A while back, late at night in the Austin downtown area, I was taking photos of the University of Texas tower --a tower a sniper used to kill several people back in the 60's (referenced by the drill sergeant in the movie Full Metal Jacket). There were five cops having a bull session a few feet away from where I set up my tripod, and they barely noticed me.

By contrast, I was taking these photos in Houston in broad daylight, in the middle of the afternoon, and I could feel the eyes upon me every time I pointed my camera at a building. Without fail, every time I stopped to take a photo of a tall building, a security guard exited a nearby building and watched my every move. No one said anything, but I couldn't help wondering if Fatherland, er, Homeland Security, was going to swoop around the corner at any moment and detain me for questioning. I was mostly worried about having my camera confiscated and the damage that would be done to it. IF I ever got it back that is: I've read of any number incidents, where in the same scenario, a confiscated camera was never returned, and to get it back required legal action that would cost more than the camera.

I've been confronted several times while taking photos. So far, none of these confrontations have been with the police. They worry me the most because the cops rarely know the law on photography, and they have the power to take your equipment. But the cops in Houston have an especially bad reputation --from shooting unarmed people (about 25% of the people they shoot from what I read) to revenue campaigns using trivial laws (for instance, Houston cops recently cited over 2,000 drivers for some new state law about license plate holders --compared to 96 citations for this offense issued STATE WIDE).

And something that surprised me: I saw only one other person with a camera during the entire time I was downtown taking photographs in a city with a population of something like two million people. You think you'd at least see a tourist or two in downtown Houston.

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