BEST LAWYERS 2011

The other day, a friend of mine who was visiting from out of town sested that we do some indusrial exploration. I'd done this with her a number of times when I still lived in LA, so it just seemed appropriate, and I guided her to an area I'd never been to before but had long hoped to explore.

She parked her car in a nearby residential area and we set out on foot down a wide public road with a dirt shoulder (although no sidewalk), bordered by tall chain-link fences with "no tresspassing" signs on them every 20 feet. Before I could even take my camera out, we were approached by a security guard and immediately questioned. (apparently people on foot are suspicious now) Upon answering that I was planning on taking photos, the guard replied "oh, you definitely aren't allowed to do that!"

I lectured him on my rights, and after he seemed to back down, we kept walking. I managed to get this single photo before he approached us again, very upset that I had ignored his command.

"I told you you couldn't do that!" he replied.

I talked to him for another 5 minutes, all the while losing precious light, and he seemed to understand that he was fighting a losing battle with me. He told me that I could contact the public relations manager regarding photography, and I'd informed him that typically I get the run-around and had stopped bothering. I would RATHER have permission and shoot from inside, but between shooting from public property or not shooting at all, I'd rather shoot. I did keep insisting that it was legal, and he kept agreeing but yet kept insisting that it still wasn't allowed. When the circular logic got frustrating and tiring (We'd been there for 15 minutes and I'd taken ONE photo), I excused myself, told him to have a nice day, and that we were going to keep shooting. Before I could re-meter for the light I'd already lost, another guard came up and proceeded to yell at me and give me the standard 9-11 hyperbole that I've almost come to expect.

When I didn't want to waste any more time with their obnoxious circular logic, and the fact that they had no right to tell me what I could and couldn't do from public property, he yelled at me and threatened to take my camera. I was ready to either ignore him and keep shooting or go into full-on "these are my civil liberties" -mode, but my friend was getting extremely uncomfortable and insisted we leave, so without any further discussion, we simply walked off. Any other day I'd have insisted on my rights, but not at the expense of a good friend of mine being seriously uncomfortable. I would describe the tone of the second guard as "verbally abusive".

After about a minute of walking, the first guard approached us again and informed us that because we had walked away this was now considered suspicious, the sheriff had been called and -- actually rather politely -- he asked if we would wait and talk to the sheriff. If he left, the sheriff, he said, would "find us, pull us over, and talk to us anyway". My friend exasperatingly informed him that he had absolutely no right to detain us (he respectfully agreed with this and quipped, "you should be a lawyer") insisted that we were leaving, so we simply walked away. He followed us to our car (by driving very very slowly), likely wrote down her plates, but didn't continue following after we drove off.

After nervously driving around a bit, we took some more photos from further away, but by then, the mood had been ruined, we were constantly looking over our shoulders (although despite driving in the same area for awhile we didn't see any sign of any law enforcement) and we went back to San Francisco where she made me a lovely dinner.

find a good lawyer and memorize his number...