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Ban On Photographing Near Gulf Oil Booms
boombaard writes "The day before yesterday CNN's Anderson Cooper reported that, from now on, there is a new rule in effect, which de facto bars photographers from coming within 65 feet of any deployed boom or response vessel around Deepwater Horizon (official announcement). The rule, announced by the US Coast Guard, forbids 'photographers and reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches. In order to get closer, you have to get direct permission from the Coast Guard captain of the Port of New Orleans,' while 'violators could face a fine of $40,000 and Class D felony charges. What's even more extraordinary is that the Coast Guard tried to make the exclusion zone 300 feet, before scaling it back to 65 feet.'" Read below for the Coast Guard's statement on the new rule.
"The Coast Guard Captain of the Port of New Orleans has delegated authority to the Coast Guard Incident Commander in Houma to allow access to the safety zones placed around all Deepwater Horizon booming operations in Southeast Louisiana. The Coast Guard Incident Commander will ensure the safety of the members and equipment of the response before access is granted. The safety zone has been put in place to prevent vandalism to boom and to protect the members and equipment of the response effort by limiting access to, and through, deployed protective boom."
how exactly is this a ban? 65 feet seems a more than reasonable safety barrier and what photographer is going to say "shit, 65 feet, better leave as can't take photos at that range".
Yes, clearly we should ban press from all areas that Jethro finds boring.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
What a crappy title. 65 feet ( 20m ) doesn't bar photography "near" a boom, it keeps idiots from bumping up against it. Unless photographers are using 1970 Instamatics, this should provide no obstacle to any serious photographer.
From the submitter's own link of the official announcement:
NEW ORLEANS - The Captains of the Port for Morgan City, La., New Orleans, La., and Mobile, Ala. , under the authority of the Ports and Waterways Safety Act, has established a 20- meter safety zone surrounding all Deepwater Horizon booming operations and oil response efforts taking place in Southeast Louisiana.
Vessels must not come within 20 meters of booming operations, boom, or oil spill response operations under penalty of law.
The safety zone has been put in place to protect members of the response effort, the installation and maintenance of oil containment boom, the operation of response equipment and protection of the environment by limiting access to and through deployed protective boom.
In areas where vessels operators cannot avoid the 20-meter rule, they are required to be cautious of boom and boom operations by transiting at a safe speed and distance.
Violation of a safety zone can result in up to a $40,000 civil penalty. Willful violations may result in a class D felony.
Permission to enter any safety zone must be granted by the Coast Guard Captain of the Port of New Orleans by calling 504-846-5923.
For information about the response effort, visit www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com.
There's no mention of photography, camera, or anything of that nature. If you get your vessel within 20m of a protective boom, you're a total moron regardless of whether or not you happen to have a camera.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
The reports of journalists being more unofficially banned from beaches where BP contractors are "cleaning" up the oil or from flying over the affected areas of the gulf.
That's odd, none of the official documents say anything about photographers. The poster even fits in a quote mentioning photographers explicitly, and words it so that if you're not paying attention it implies that it's an official quote. This is sensationalist journalism at its best. Why are photographers trying to get that close anyway? With my consumer-grade camera I can take a close-up portrait of someone from rather further away than that.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
This would be a great time to start updating those satellite photos of the gulf
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
I'm a hobbyist photographer and videographer, and I've been hassled for ID before when shooting in a public place. I read plenty of stories about photographers being harassed improperly, and reading the article I don't think this is one of them. They started at 300ft, which was silly, and scaled it back to 65ft when called on it. Leaving aside the who and why, 65 feet doesn't make this stuff hard to photograph. Even with a 200mm lens on a digital SLR (especially crop sensor) you can get very serviceable shots of "what's going on" at 65ft. Professional press photographers on assignment usually have a healthier complement of lenses than that, before considering telconverters, cropping in on the subject and so on.
If the story is something highly specific to do with equipment and handling of it then perhaps you need an even bigger lens or to be closer to the subject. But if you're taking shots of how they're laying out booms, who's involved and so on, 65ft isn't a big deal at all. Seems like a not unreasonable tradeoff to keep people from getting under the workers' feet. The subjective standard I'm applying here is does the restriction make it likely we'll not find out something that the public interest demands should be disclosed? No, it really doesn't.
Greetings and Salutations.
Well, the questions and thoughts that spring to my mind are: Have there been any problems with photographers damaging the booms or causing breaches? While 65 feet may not seem like much, it can easily make it very hard to get clear pictures of the booms as they bob up and down in the ocean waters. THAT makes it harder to keep track of how well they are working to block the oil, or, adsorb the crude and keep it from moving on. Is this the REAL reason for the limit? Also, why would the limit be 300 feet first...then get cut down to 65 feet? That sounds more like spin control than security to me.
Regards
dave mundt
YAB - http://blog.beemandave.com/
Really? This is a /. worthy story?
Starting to be ashamed to be a member. What happened to tech stories and stuff?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
or Daily Kos, or any other news outlet that isn't owned by Rupert Murdoch: This is being used to hassle anyone coming near the site, 65 ft or not.
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It's pretty unlikely, given that not a single foot of the gulf is actually boomed properly. See, actual booming requires that the booming be in the water, deployed in a zig-zag fashion with the high points leading to collection equipment. It also requires nearly round-the-clock hand maintenance to deal with changing tides, wind, waves, etc. Laying down a straight line of boom in the water, then leaving it to sit does fuck-all to contain oil, and less than fuck-all when it gets wadded up on the beach a couple hours later.
So no, I doubt that there's a serious problem with photographers damaging booms. And yes, this is almost certainly about spin control, rather than actual disaster control.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
FTFY.
Are you going to cite the magical photo fairies next?
I don't think 65 ft is all that unreasonable, but understand that it will make a lot of photography rather harder. Longer lenses mean heavier lenses, which, as you say, means you'll probably need a shorter exposure, at least if hand-held. (Setting up a tripod can often take too long for non-posed photos.) But a shorter shutter means that you'll be compromising somewhere else: narrower depth of field or higher ISO. Narrow DOF can be nice for some artistic shots; less nice for most photojournalism. Sure, these things probably aren't so important if it's nice and sunny out, but what about if it's cloudy? Balancing all of these things can quickly become difficult.
But the real problem is that of perspective. Unless you carry around a 40' self-supporting tower with you, having to stay 65' out means that your angle is going to be MUCH lower. That does two things. First it will make it much easier for your view to be blocked. Instead of walking up to a line of grass and photographing over it, you have to photograph through it. Instead of getting closer and photographing from above the waves, you have to wait until they line up in such a way that nothing's in the way of your shot. It also means a lower angle on the ocean, which may well mean that it's harder to see the oil.
In short, putting a long lens on your camera isn't the same as walking up to something, for a number of reasons, and if you think it is, you should go back to photo school.
No, that doesn't solve the problem. With distance comes additional wave peaks; any one of them can occlude the view. All you'd get would be a sharp photo of the intervening wavefront. Not the boom. It more depends on the height above the water of the camera when the photo was taken. Which in turn shouldn't be a huge problem -- it isn't like the photographers will be out there in canoes.
I suspect there's something going on here - some damage that occurred, or an injury - that they're trying to prevent from recurring. It's vaguely possible they're covering something up... perhaps the state of wildlife at the booms, or collection of heavier crude around the booms... but since you can take perfectly horrific shots on the beaches, I just don't see what the benefit to them would be to try and cover up those kinds of things, so I tend to doubt it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Also known as a hillbilly "mating ritual".
The official announcement was that the exclusion area was 20 metres, not 65 feet. I would have thought that most people reading Slashdot would be able to do the conversion -- if not, go ask a six year old how to do it. Good too see that the US forces are starting to think metric.
The title of this article is an absolute embarrassment. This is beyond inaccurate, it's inflammatory. Photography is not banned. A reasonable safety margin has been set around the response equipment and boats - and it's about fucking time. Scuba divers and other special activities are routinely given a 75 foot (more or less) safety margin, and it seems absolutely reasonable to make everyone stay clear while these people are trying to work. Frankly, 300 feet would have been completely reasonable. It's bad enough this "news" is already ancient (par for the course on /. lately), but now we have to deal with mind-boggling bias... is this /. or Greenpeace?
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Coast Guard
Because we all can't be seamen!
I take from this that you don't live within 1000 miles of a body of water deep enough to float a rubber duckie.
It also means a lower angle on the ocean, which may well mean that it's harder to see the oil.
I totally agree with the points you made. The obvious thing of course is to simply get a higher angle, by either getting onto an object on the beach, or by getting onto the roof/upper deck of a boat you are in. Sixty five feet really isn't that far.
Is it as good as getting a shot from 1 foot of the object? Not at all. I totally agree, but I can sort of understand why they don't want every Tom, Dick and Harry to go bungling around booms and things meant to STOP the oil.
Great for Journalism? No.
Great for folks wanting to brush this under the carpet. Yes.
Great for the cleanup/relief effort? Hopefully.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
65 feet is not a very large distance. At all. It's less than half the usual 'safe recommended following distance' for highway traffic.
Moving things around on the sea is difficult, and they've already once had a worry about a gas buildup blowing out and had to quickly move a ship (which yanked a pipe etc etc). Having a small buffer zone to allow things to move around in an emergency is only sensible, and any journalist who thinks endangering other people so they can sit on top of the story can just blow it out their ass.
This story is just sensationalism feeding off public displeasure with anyone involved with this mess.. which is disappointing. While there are people who deserve to be hated for what has happened, if you're just automatically going to shit on ANYONE involved with trying to fix the problem, why the hell would anyone want to get involved with that? blaaaah.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
What a crappy title. 65 feet ( 20m ) doesn't bar photography "near" a boom, it keeps idiots from bumping up against it. Unless photographers are using 1970 Instamatics, this should provide no obstacle to any serious photographer.
I beg to differ, I had planned to do a series of night shots of booms with a Holga and an LED flashlight. I insight my "right" to engage in dangerous night missions that may lead to equipment damage be respected!
Hey, some serious photographers use Holgas...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Where the hell is the editorial review? The title and summary of the slashdot article have nothing to do with the linked article. Do you people not read the linked articles? What a waste of time.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6496749n
That's video shot by a national news outlet, of a US Coast Guard officer, threatening the news crew with arrest if they don't comply with a BP policy. Color of law, anyone?
More: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=bp+photographers+blockade
Search youtube, too. A lot of people with video recorders are getting harassed by local cops and sheriff departments.
Please help metamoderate.
Oh stop. This is photojournalism, not Ansel Adams. I routinely take pictures of little bitty sea birds and dog sized otters standing on my boat with a 400 mm telephoto. A fucking big oil containment boom isn't going to present much of a photographic problem. If you really want to go artistic with your 16 mm wide angle and get your nose next to the thing, go find some place where the cops aren't and get your creative juices going.
I rather doubt that the Coast Guard considers athestics as part of the rule making process.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Several hundred if not thousand feet of boom has been STOLEN by 'photographers'. Some have even tried to sell the stolen boom back to BP. So yeah, while photographs are great and all, and I really can't wait to see them on CNN, because, you know, they add just that much more realism to something that I already realize is totally fucked, I guess I understand this ruling. Spin control or not, dave, it's for good reason.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Uhhhh - I really don't see a problem. No photographers within 65 feet. Let's think a moment. You want a shot of a boat or a boom, that is, what, 50 feet long? Since any professional photographer has zoom lenses (whether optical or digital zoom, it hardly matters) he can be anywhere within 1/2 mile to get spectacular shots. I can show you a great shot of the ship I served on, shot from ~ 5 miles out - you can see that both the mount 52 deck gun and the missile launcher is tracking the helicopter that took the shot. (It was in a war zone, we tracked EVERYTHING, didn't matter if it claimed to be friendly)
The coast guard doesn't want any one climbing on the booms, or sabotaging them, they don't want to be rescuing some fool who hurts himself. Stay 65 feet away, take all the pics you want. Seems reasonable to me. The original 300 feet wasn't unreasonable, either. 300 feet is terribly close to any working vessel at sea. The rules of the road, observed around the world, dictate that you stay clear of working vessels and/or ships underway.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Boats? Fine. Why are they banning photographers from taking photos from the shorelines?
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Don't bother with that tripod at sea, unless it's gimbaled and stabilized. Youtube has some videos where the camera was tripod mounted. You get better results with handheld equipment. Gyros and such cost more money than even professionals are likely to spend, unless the photographer is specialized in open water shooting.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
...is to file for copyright on millions of images and thousands of hours of video of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico. Followed shortly by hundreds of lawsuits against news agencies for copyright infringement.
No ones figured out why this is a problem yet? I'll spell it out for you... The majority of the damage being done is to small barrier islands off the coast of Louisiana. Those islands are completely wrapped in boom. If you can not come within 65 feet of the boom and the boom completely wraps the island, you can't go to the island at all.
Everyone's missing the real reason for the ban: too many "photographers" are using their "cameras" to steal the souls of the clean-up workers. The lich-kings (aka "Ted Turner" and "Ruport Murdoch") have long been stocking souls in preparation for the 2012 apocalypse. Louisianans, thanks to their voodoo culture, understand this and want to keep their souls for the use of the local shamans.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
I agree. 65 feet is nothing. Only 21+ yards, and being out at sea, you can have a pretty big boat rolling in the waves right next to some journalist's 15' POS. That could get dangerous. Also remember this is coming on the heels of the hurricane that just blew through the Gulf where the seas were pretty rough. My guess is that they had quite a few close calls this last week with the bad weather.
I like the bit about being allowed to get close to the ground for landing. So considerate. Goverment press releases, they can't help but make you smile.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Wonder how long it will take for the geniuses in the field to figure out that if you create a barrier out of booms, along the width of the beach, you've now effectively blocked off the entire area.
You could effectively totally block several miles of beach by the simple placement of a few 100 feet of boom on either end. No different than a police barrier or crime scene tape. "Do not pass".
Except that's not what they're selling us here, supposedly. 65 feet my ass.
Yeah for a second I thought I was supposed to be upset because they're letting people get so close. Sixty five feet can be annoyingly close to a work site at sea.
There is no reason vessels should be so dangerously close to equipment. 300 feet makes much more sense.
As for picture quality, a good camera can capture very high levels of detail at 300 feet.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I was going to post the same myself. For photography of an oil boom, even my kit lens could achieve enough zoom at a distance of 65 feet to take picture of something large like a skimming boom.
Personally, I'd be afraid to get within 65 feet of an active boom unless I were escorted by an expert boom operator. This rule is designed for photographers too stupid to stay away from dangerous objects.
The headline is misleading, it implies photographing of the booms is not allowed, but in reality, you're just not permitted to get ridiculously close to them. Ideally ANYONE should be banned from getting within that distance of an active skimming boom. It probably specifically specifies photographers because photographers were the only people trying to get stupidly close to the booms. (And most likely, true professionals were getting escorted close-in with the appropriate permits rather than just trying to sneak up without asking first.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Three words:
Safety
Zoom Lens
This isn't surprising at all. All it takes is some idiot to get his prop tangled in one of those, or an angry idiot to vandalize it, to make it even more useless. There are a ton of zoom lenses capable of spanning 65 feet to get a picture.
Climb up high on the boat, put a zoom and polarized filter on (to get through surface reflections on the water) and take the picture.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
From the actual release:
FTFA at NewsBusters.org:
This is not about reporters and photographers. This about preventing accidents. It sounds to me like Cooper and company are pissed that they are not getting special treatment and are required seek permission and access like everyone else.
I notice that there was no mention of CNN or any other news organization applying for access to an area, let alone being denied access. Did they bother to apply, or did they just start whining that they had to follow some rules to help ensure the safety and security of everyone involved?
Sounds to me like Cooper et al. are whining because some safety rules have been set up that inconvenience them instead of inconveniencing or endangering those who are actually doing the clean up and the equipment being used.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Well you did fall for the spin on the story as had I until I thought about a bit and read some of the other comments on Slashdot.
This is not a restriction on photographers it is just a restriction. All none workers are to keep at least 65 feet from all booms and working ships.
Think about how close that really is before you get all bent. It is to keep protesters, gawkers, and general idiots as well the press from bumping up to or getting run over by out at sea.
Frankly 300 feet which is really close to get to a boat at sea seems reasonable and common sense. This smaller distance is probably to help the press with coverage and not to stop it.
In other words this is yet another none story that has been spun into a Freedom of the Press issue when their is no freedom of the Press Issue involved.
It is funny because since I do not like the Obama administration because of it's space policy and some other issues I was all ready to jump in on them cracking down on the press. That really would have been unfair of me because frankly this is a reasonable restriction based on safety. Frankly they probably should have gone with the 300 ft rule but seems to have gone for less safety and more access.
And they can request closer access. Now we do have to watch and see if the that is used to block access but that has not as far as I can tell happened yet.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Because with the press if you make it just a fine they will just pay it and keep coming. You can not make press respect anything other than themselves.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Actually, yes there is. Not only has there been intentional vandalism, booms have accidentally been damaged by boat propellers. I realize the media is reluctant to report anything that might help BP, but you really should do a little research before spouting off.
This space intentionally left blank.
Coming from someone whose spent a lot of time on the water with both motor boats and crewing on racing yachts it's really not that hard to cause an accident with anything on the water in the best of conditions. 65 feet isn't going to be more than three boat lengths for anything they're taking out there. Anything less than that and all is required for an accident is one wrong push of the throttle, one misjudgment of how the next wave is going to push you or where/if there's an anchor line on that ship your photographing and then you're going to F something up. Maybe you'll just knock into the boom and not really cause any harm. Maybe you'll foul it in your prop destroying it. Maybe you'll damage a skimmer ship your trying to get a good shot of it and take it out of service. Maybe you'll just scare the captain because he doesn't want to depend on you for getting out of the way and cause him to change course or halt operations costing time and money. There's a lot of crap that can go wrong, and it's very easy for a small mistake to turn into very dangerous situations on open water. You break someones car on the highway and they get out and a squad car and tow truck comes. You break someones boat on the ocean and they swim or drown and the response vehicles (helicopters, cutters, patrol boats) cost a lot more to get out there. And then add to that the fact that you'd be interrupting disaster response efforts. There's your difference.
I believe that their is also a limit to how much a fine can be with a misdemeanor. Before I get jumped on I freely admit that I could be wrong about that.
Also maybe you missed that part where it said, "could be charged with". It is meant to scare people into not being stupid. Let me know if anybody gets charged with it. This is the worst case and honestly will probably never be used unless someone is really causing problems and refuses to comply with requests to move.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
65 feet is only a couple of boat-lengths. That's pretty close. If I was working those booms, I'd be worried about any boat that close running over or afoul of the boom.
So photographers are limited to 65ft. How close can other people get? Is that still 300ft? My guess is that reporters are belly-aching because they can't get close enough to dip a gloved hand into the oil and show it to the camera.
Felonies can only be created by legislation (for federal law, this means an act of Congress.) The Coast Guard didn't decide to impose a safety zone, and separately decide what class of offense to make violations and what penalties to make available for violations. Instead, the Ports and Waterways Safety Act, which provides the authority under which the Coast Guard has established the perimeter, sets out the civil penalty for violations and the criminal penalty for willful violations.
(Also, the perimeter is 20 meters, not 65 feet as widely reported. 65 feet is the greatest integer number of feet which is less than 20 meters, so its a convenient approximation for people who can't deal with fractions or metric measures, but it isn't the actual perimeter.)
You ever been in an ocean? 65feet is a very small amount of space. A couple of waves and you've been pushed that 65 feet and you've hit the booms.
Do you Gentoo!?
I'd have to agree, 65 feet with a decent lens should not be an issue. They make temporary rules like this to keep people out of somewhat dangerous conditions and out from under toe when the clean up crew needs to make quick changes. It's not like these reporters are standing around the sidewalks beside a couple of collapsed buildings while the rubble is being removed. They are on a boat which is constantly fighting the currents of the open ocean while trying to get close for the best shots; this situation has potential to lead to reporters getting in the way and possibly causing a mid-ocean collision or worse, personal injury or death. They have the right to request further access too so I don't really see an issue with the Coast Guard's decision.
I couldn't agree more.. 65 feet seems really close, probably a bit on the unsafe side, and closer than needed for photography of the spill.
And let's face it, if you can't get a fantastic shot of something large (i.e.: a giant oil spill, not a flea) from 100 feet away, you're either badly equipped or lacking in talent. Getting closer will not help you much.
Of course, we're quick to assume this is impinging on freedom of the press, but the last thing we need is some idiot reporter getting his boat hung up in the boom and damaging it because he was 5' away and a big wave pushed his boat into it.
-Matt
OK. Pre June 28, team of photographers went to gulf. They presented their trip at TEDx Oil Spill conference in DC, along with other speakers. Afterwards chatted with Darron Collins (WWF, one of that team). He definitely confirmed that at beaches, anyway, BP asserted legal jurisdiction, had "blackwater" looking security guys hanging around - AND KEPT THEM 100 FEET AWAY FROM WATERS'S EDGE. Also, fishing boat captains who took up BP's offer to sweep oil, manage booms, etc. had to sign a gag order agreement on talking about anything and could not take non-BP-approved journalists along. All clearly intended to control information that would make BP look bad or not be "on message", to adopt a bushism. They managed to find one guy with a skiff who had no love for BP to run them around some. Also a seaplane was hired for aerial photos. I imagine that BP wants more restrictions imposed after an early flurry of "unauthorized" media coverage - but a FELONY? Anyway video of conference here http://tedxoilspill.com/live/#Session1 - look at about 32 minutes in and go on from there. Also from that conference was impressed by slide of Blue Crab Larvae with accumulations of oil/dispersant? (orange blobs in words of researcher at Tulane who sent slide to Darron just before conf. Screen captures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fly_geyser/sets/72157624410128020/) Potential economic impact, not to mention crimps on "shrimp on the barbie" events of basic food chain life forms, is significant for American food supply. We are talking the biggest food marketing system on the planet here - VERY good reason to control the flow of info if you can't control the flow of your crude blowout. Sir, we/ve established motive.
...that's the beauty of time travel...bye