Twice today I was approached by city park officials (in an outer borough, not Manhattan) for using my 8x10 field camera on a tripod. Never mind that people were using DSLRs on a tripod within 50 feet of me and were not hassled.

One of the officers just asked about my camera and left me alone after he satisfied his curiosity. The other one asked for my permit sternly and told me to immediately stop what I was doing. After I showed him, as I was disassembling the camera by his order, that there was nothing but air inside the actual camera and that it was not some high tech device, he took pity on my crazy hobby and allowed me to continue.

Months ago, I called the New York City film commission and asked if I need a permit to use a view camera and they said no, that I did not need a permit to use a view camera under any circumstances and that the law was meant to regulate commercial film crews and photographers. Yet it seems city officers do not understand the intent of the law.

We live in a very sad age, where drug dealers in Washington Square Park are never arrested after years of dealing on the same street corner (I know their faces well by now), but people using an 8x10 view camera are called into question twice in two hours.