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Anyone ever been harassed by local Law Enforcement while shooting at their favorite airport? Here is my little story:

Several weeks ago, a friend and I were shooting from the parking deck at ATL when a APD (Atlanta Police Department) officer shows up. Didn't ask what we were doing, but demanded to know. Told us to give him our ID's and to put our camera's down. After he TOLD us that what we were doing was against the law (?), we said that we would gladly leave and go somewhere off the property to shoot. Immediately he told us that he would make sure that we were put on the FBI's most watched list if we ever got caught again taking pictures of airplanes! We politely left the area. One does have to understand something about the APD officers at ATL. Quite a few of them are sent there because they are about 1 step away from being dismissed due to poor performance, public complaints or just a bad officer.

Part II - but on a better note:

Today, I was not on ATL property taking pictures, but on a public roadway. Within 5 minutes, a yellow ATL operations truck pulls up along side of my truck and ask what am I doing. I told them I was shooting pictures of the planes. They asked if it was for business or pleasure. I told them pleasure and the two guys in the truck exchanged glances and they said "OK. Have a great day" and drove off. No problem. Another 5 minutes pass and here comes APD! The officer walks up to me and asks me, very politely, what I was doing and if I would show him my ID. I told him the same thing and he just smiled and asked if I had any weapons on myself or in my truck. I told him "no" and he asked if he could look in my truck. I gave him permission and told him that I was probably the most "boring" person he was going to have. He laughed and said that he wished all his contacts were boring. After figuring out I wasn't a radical terrorist, he told me why he stopped by and that I did have the lawful right to take pictures, but that another officer may stop by and ask me to leave. I told him no problem and he told me to have a nice day and left. Day get's better! About 15 minutes later a big black Ford Excursion pulls up behind me and this guy gets out and goes "Hey man! Hows it going! Great day to take pictures!" I looked at him and said "You are #3 so far". He asked who else has been by and I told him, and he just smiled! He pulled his ID out from his back pocket and showed me that he was a US Marshal and he was just stopping by to make sure I wasn't a "table cloth and fan belt dude"! We laughed about that and then he really surprised me by telling me where some even better places were to take pictures from! I was a bit taken back by that!!! He shook my hand and told me to enjoy the day and left!

I learned my lesson! Don't shoot from the airport, but off the property where they really can't bother you. And, if a US Marshal tells you where better places to shoot from are, you definitely tell him THANK YOU and take him up on the tips!

That's a great story. Thanks for sharing.

Ken

"table cloth and fan belt dude"?? Must be southern humor! Translation, please. I am certainly glad that SZP is a private, full access airport that encourages visitors-never accosted in 40 years

Terrorist, especially middle east terrorist?

Ken Wang

Airport-Data.com

Here in Houston we are able to shoot from the garage areas. We do call the airport security office and let them know where we are. We also have an official parking lot viewing area at the threshold of one runway.

So far have never been bothered.

ATL is very anal about people taking ANY picture of airplanes at the airport! Directly from the ATL website:

Filming/Photography

Requests for filming or photography are to be made to the Public Relations Manager for approval five (5) days prior to filming. Cancellations must be made at least 24 hours prior to film appointments or a $100 fee will be assessed.

There is an escort fee of $25 per hour (two hour minimum; non-refundable, even upon cancellation) and a location fee of $100 per hour to film on airport property. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport reserves the right to restrict filming of the security checkpoint at any time.

Now is that not stoopid?

"table cloth and fan belt dude" is politically correct term for "towel head"!

If I travel to ATL, and take pictures while I am waiting for the flight, do I need to notice them well in advance?

That's just insane.

Ken

You know, that's the strange thing. Last month we flew from ATL to STL and once you are beyond the security check point, you will rarely see any LE anywhere! I was able to shoot from the inside of the terminal all I wanted and even had a couple of the gate agents take a real interest in what I was doing. I showed them the pictures I was taking (from the display on the back of the camera) and they were impressed! Guess if you have a ticket and can get beyond the security point, you can take all the pictures you want! You just can't take pictures from outside of the airport! Someone there needs their heads screwed on right!

16 days later

That is almost as bad as the new CAF policy. They now claim that all of their aircraft are copyrighted and that you cannot take photos of them for publication or sale without paying CAF a fee. One potographer has been told that they want 10% of any income from any sales but I have not seen anything in writing. The Collings Foundation charges to get into their area at airports they visit so the CAF will probably try to do that also.

The CAF Southern California Wing, Camarillo, California CMA Airport has charged entry fees since they built their two new hangars, Museum admission: $5 adults, $2 (12 & under), under 3-free. They also charge separate admission to their C-46 and C-131 guided tours. I am warned no commercial photo use and do not join the CAF's guided tour. Yet, pictures of their aircraft at Airshows seem to be all over the Web. After payment, the CAF gives you a VISITOR sticker to slap on your clothing in the museum and on their ramp for access.

If you do not have an aircraft based at CMA, through an FBO office, the CAF or the Waypoint Cafe and its outdoor patio dining area are the only pedestrian entries to CMA. Transient pilots who stay a while in the area joke about it while schlepping their flight bags, luggage etc. through the cafe back to their planes.

15 days later

I was shooting some pictures one day on the opposite side of the airport from the tower. This is an area where people go to access the river in the summer and run, walk, exercise and whatever else one feels like they want to do. I like to take pictures of airplanes. I had my pickup truck parked as close to the fence as I could get it in order to see down the runway to the approach end of 27. If you look at some of my photos at IPT you might understand. Anyway I was shooting the approach and landing of a US Airways (Piedmont) Dash-8 and listening to the tower frequency. IF you would like to see the pics I took of this it is N942HA. At the end of this guys rollout and just where he should have been turning away from me toward the the gate to exit the runway HE stops. Stops on the runway. Sits there for a few seconds and I hear him report me to the tower as "pointing something at the airplane". This was right after they had issued a notice of reports about Laser beams being pointed at aircraft. So I could understand, I suppose, the caution. The tower says that they will send someone out to check it out. So what am I supposed to do....run away? I din't think that was good idea. So I got my military id (retired) out and ready and heard the security truck call ground and get permission to cross the runway and I watched him come to me. HE asked me what was up. Actually I had a pretty nice conversation with him. He knows who I am now and we greet each other by name. While we were talking an L39C (N339DM if you want to look at some of the pics) flew by and he started talking about the guy flying it. I later took the security guy a CD with some video of the L39. That's another story. Anyway that is the only "harrassment" I have ever experienced. The FBO here at IPT doesn't like you to take pics during normal business hours but I rent a plane out of there and if I'm on the ramp I don't get harrassed. At least not yet.

2 months later

Well, another off day for me (from work), so I decided to go down towards ATL to shoot pictures of airliners. Find a great abandoned warehouse with a large parking area, so what do I do? I park and start shooting. Time until Forest Park Police Department shows up? About 30 minutes! Not one, not two, but THREE cars come to investigate me! Two officers and a sergeant! Pretty thorough check on me! Complete NCIC check (full background history), check out the truck, take my photograph and a fingerprint! Good thing was that they let me continue to take photo’s. One funny part of it all was that every time they keyed up their radio’s, the Close Call technology in the Uniden 996 would kick in! They would all turn and look at it! All in all, it was very professional, and they got a kick out of me when I told them that I was going to become College Park’s problem because ATL turned the airport around and I would have to go to the west side of the airport to shoot!

I have never been hassled or even had anyone from any official agency make contact with me, as long as I was not on airport property.

I did have issues at Centennial when I was taking pictures from their parking lot at the ariport, especially towards the FBO's, but that was resolved a long ago (with the help of some great folks at the field).

DIA does allow pictures but you have to jump some hoops and pay money to get to them, also they have the 6'-0" Fence rule....you cannot get within 6 feet of the fenceline anywere near the field.

The one thing is that every airport that I have visited does have is a special photography rule, that states in essence, if your are taking pictures for commercial use (money changing hands), then you do have to pay the airport authority for the privilege.

You will see this on every website for every "Commercial" Airport, or in their Rules and Regulations materials available from the Airport Administrative Offices.

You will see these same clauses as well for taking pictures in State and US Parks, Federal Lands, Marinas, Beaches, and other similar locations.

My only argument is that I pay both city taxes, and airline ticket taxes for the "privilege" to have and use the airport, why should it be such a problem to enjoy my hobby at the same place.

The real point they are missing and as I have posted before. We are enthusiast of taking pictures of airplanes, we are not going to idly sit by and watch some idiot do something that would ever endanger a plane, it's crew, or passengers, plus with all of us with cameras hanging around our necks, what better "un-official" security service could they ever want.

I usually check in at General Aviation before going out to shoot the planes lined up at my hometown airport.. Shooting planes for Airport-Data from different sites seems to me to be a benefit for the airports.Your photos are putting the airports on the map.People get to see the planes creating the air traffic.Not to mention the airshows,aviation museums,and general aviation aircraft shots. Airport-Data is viewed all over the world. At crash sites Ive been to while on the job as a news photographer ,Ive suggested to authorites to check Airport-Data to see if a photo of the plane is listed there.In September 2006 while at a crash site with 2 fatal's, I went back to the paper and found a photo of the plane that had been posted a few months before by its owners who had perished in the crash.If anything these airports and authorites should be happy we are helping them. The photos posted here have taken me to airports and shown me planes that cant be seen anywhere else.Recently new signs have been placed at several locations at the local airport with the phone number's of the airport manager and police so that suspicious activity can be reported.My friends at General Aviation just mailed me the 2007 Virginia Aviation Photography Contest sponsored by the Virginia Department of Aviation.If we cant get on the airports we cant get the shots.

12 days later

The saga continues!

Today, my wife calls to "congratulate" me on having the FBI come to our house to interview me! About 30 minutes later, I get a call from one of the agents requesting to interview me about my pictures. I won't go into detail, but I guess they figured out that I'm not the bad guy they thought I was!

So, my tally includes: Atlanta Police, Forest Park Police, ATL Operations, Fulton County Police, US Air Marshal, Marietta Police, DoD Police and now the FBI. Who else will "investigate" me?

To my Law Enforcement friends - I'm here to stay! Planespotting is not a crime!

I guess that list pretty much covers all the US law enforcement forces?

Hi Michael,

I guess that is what they call getting the "full" treatment. I would think after all of the background checks and the other contacts, you should be able to actually get onto the airport now.....<g>

I am not sure how this got to the level it has.

Yes we all know about 9-11, and it was a horrendous day for the US, we also know about some of the other stupid stunts people have done to try and disrupt air travel and interfere with the flight crews on board airplanes, but we are a fixed item, we are on the ground taking pictures, and we are in plain view, and in no way trying to "hide" what we are doing.

The European airports seem to "accomodate" their airplane picture takers by giving them an area to carry out the hobby. This actually gives the airport and the police some comfort in that they have folks in one area.

If the individuals at the US Airports would be as accomodating, I would have no issue with badging or background checks to be in these areas if that would give us a really great palce to take the pictures.

I hope that we are not moving closer to losing our Republic (I love that word, and if you are over 45 years old you will understand it's use).

I wish there was some kind of "case" number that I could give the law enforcement personnel so they could just go "OK" and let me go. No matter where I take photo's from, and it's ALWAYS in plain view of everyone, I always get a visit. In order to keep my hobby going, I'm seriously considering purchasing a building near ATL and then I would be on my own property and, hopefully, there wouldn't be anything they could say to me! Yeah, right!

The idea of purchasing might be a bit steep, but what you could do is see if you can "rent" a small office or space near the field.

In fact I have even considered seeing if I could sub-rent space from one of the folks that owns hangers at the General Aviation field here. There are a number of private hangers that have office spaces in them. I would get badged, supply my insurence information, and carry on with my picture taking.

For Commercial Airports, with so many office building immediately adjacent to the fields, you might be able to sub-rent for very few dollars a month just for the opportunity to take the pictures. They may even have roof access so that you can look right over the field.

I don't have any good answers for all of this, but there should be a middle ground that everyone could agree on this issue.

While, I personnaly don't think I should have to "register" with everyone and their brother to go about my "hobby", I guess if I had to, I would not lose a lot of sleep over the process.

2 months later

I never had a problem at ATL when I was there surprisingly.

I had a 3 hour layover at ATL, so I went to the north end of concourse C and pulled out the telephoto and started taking pictures and no one said a thing. I also shot from the garage.

Now my home town airport MCO (Orlando) is pretty bad. I got busted on property a couple of times - once back in 2004 and I didn't have a camera, I was just watching planes - they just chased me out.

However this past February, a fellow spotter and I were on airport property taking pictures when a guy came out from one of the cargo buildings and warned us that if Ops caught us we could get in trouble. We thanked him for the warning, and decided we should leave after we took a picture of a "dime a dozen" Air Tran 717s landing. That was stupid because we probably could have got out fine. However 3 Ops vehicles suddenly surrounded us and took our I.D.s. Fortunately they were cool and professional about it, however they were also firm never to be caught on property again spotting. You can get special permission to spot at MCO they said, but they put you on the garage roof for that. You can get good pictures of planes at Airside 1 gates, but for any operations you would need at least a 400 mm telephoto. I was careful to get out of there because at the time I had applied for various operations positions at the airport and I didn't want to ruin my career. Fortunately that didn't stop them from hiring me because I start work with Landside operations soon at MCO.

Fortunately, my new apartment is in the approach for Runways 18L and 18R at MCO, and I live 3 miles north. My 300mm is sufficient enough to get good afternoon pictures in front of my apartment of the planes arriving, although 18R is practically a belly shot. I have parking lots down the street also I can get from as well as morning shots from a nearby park where no one bothers me.

DTW (Detroit) - This is a place where I have been bothered at times, and left alone at others. This was my old hometown airport.

When I was a kid, there was an unofficial spotting location called "Checkpoint 6" at DTW. It was right at the approach for what is now Runway 22L (then 21R). This was the best runway because it is 12,000 ft so all international stuff operated on it. It wasn't an official spotting location, but on weekends there would be 20-30 cars there with people watching planes and the cops would only come by to make sure no one was boozing it up or smoking joints (It got really popular after the Wayne's World movie - where Wayne and Garth were sitting at the airport watching planes land).

In 1996 it was closed and grassed over. People parked at the approach on the shoulder, but it wasn't long before the cops would come by and chase you away. I used to be able to park along the shoulder around the perimeter of the airport with no problems, but the cops around 1996 started chasing people away - possibly due to the then DTW direct to PEK route that was started, I believe then was the first U.S. route to mainland China on an American carrier. Also, this was shortly after TWA 800 expliosion, plus the fact that the Detroit area has the largest Muslim population in the U.S. got people all paranoid.

Since then its been here and there at DTW.

I got chased away off property near DTW by the police, but the week before I took pictures from the parking garage for 4 hours on prperty with no one bothering me.

Another time I was off property, some "Git Er Dun" type driving his pickup withthe giant American flag in the window and Bush/Cheney 2004 stickers still on it drives by me with a funny look on his face, makes a U turn and drives over to where a parked cop car is and the next thing I know the cop is questioning me. The cop was pretty cool, just checked my ID, saw I was no threat and told me I was ok there.