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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".
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.
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/
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.
or Daily Kos, or any other news outlet that isn't owned by Rupert Murdoch
Daily Kos is not a "news outlet". It's a partisan blog.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
There's something below Fox News in integrity? That's very difficult to imagine - even Cthulhu has some principles.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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.
Daily Kos is not a "news outlet". It's a partisan blog.
Well it started out that way, but clearly it has risen in stature to the point where it can now be compared to FoxNews in terms of reliability and integrity!
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
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.
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.
That's very difficult to imagine - even Cthulhu has some principles.
Yeah, he's opposed to deep water drilling, for a start.
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
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?
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.
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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!?