Industrial Strength Night Photography

We headed out to the industrial area on Marine Drive underneath the Oak Street Bridge and once again, because we were in the vicinity of aircraft flight-paths adjacent to the Vancouver International Airport, the neighborhood was crawling with security personnel.  I was stopped twice.  Once by an undercover plain clothes team -- one guy had a distinctive English accent (the Brits are here already?) and the second time by a team of Vancouver's finest in a ghost car. The undercover gang actually wanted to see the images on my D700 card.  Which I was happy to show them, but as I was on public property, a clear violation of my rights.  As I was with the rest of my seminar class mates, I didn't want to create a situation that effected everyone else. 


The same thing happened last Wednesday night as I was shooting landing aircraft (with a DSLR, NOT a surface-to-air missile!) from a public roadway.  An RCMP officer and not one, but TWO security vehicles asked me what I was doing.  This is a full three weeks before the Olympics, and all I could see was the sight of vast sums of money being burned.  Everyone of these bastards is in a frame of mind to hassle people in order to justify their paychecks and their overtime. So if you've got camera gear, prepare to be hassled. A LOT.  It just seems to be an intrinsic part of my nature that when someone asks me in an officious tone of voice, "Who are you and what are you doing?", that my instant retort is, "Yeah, well who the f**k are you and why do you want to know?"  These security folks could sure use some lessons in the social graces.


I think it's a crying shame that thanks to how American foreign policy under the direction of the Republicans has so completely f**ked up the world, that in order to host the Olympics (don't even get me started on that one) here in Canada, we are somehow expected to find it normal that we should be expected to produce photo identification to some wanker with a badge, a gun and a really bad polyester uniform.  In Canada, on Canadian soil.  These are the same idiots who are dying to install as many cameras as possible wherever they can to infringe upon our right to privacy and our civil rights.  Funny, when you ask to see THEIR identification, you can see the hair stand up on their necks.  No kidding, you stupid bastards.


Life is messy and dangerous.  Airport security is mostly a complete and utter joke and causes nothing more than lost productivity and is a vast hassle for everyone who flies.  It has about zero efficacy in stopping wannabe terrorists.  Take your shoes off?  Brilliant! Great way to spend a few hundred billion dollars guys.  In no way, shape or form have the vast sums of moneys squandered on all manner of draconian security measures actually made the world a safer place.  Might not have hurt to spend a couple of billion dollars building schools and hospitals, eh?  Sorry, I forgot.  That actually makes sense, and there's not any profit in schools and hospitals for American oil companies...  In short, accept a couple of airplanes going down every year as the cost of doing business in the Middle-East and we'd all be much further ahead.  More people are killed every month by drunk drivers and handguns than are killed in a decade by terrorists.  And actually, it's probably more like a century.  And if you really want to save the greatest number of lives and make the greatest improvement in people's quality of life, ban corn syrup.


Rant over.  But given how security personnel in Vancouver is reacting to camera gear, be prepared for the worst.  And rest assured, these same people have zero sense of humor.


ANYWAYS...  I thoroughly enjoyed setting up some long exposures and then light painting parts of my frame with both LED flashlights and Nikon Speedlights.


Shot on a Nikon D700 and the Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 wide-angle zoom.


- Vince Hemingson