In what is becoming a disturbing trend, photographers are being attacked and robbed in broad daylight at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts. The latest attack, which was caught on video, has photographers who work in the area on edge.
Two men, dressed in all black, violently attacked a wedding photographer recently as he photographed newlyweds in the middle of the day. The photographer, who was pistol-whipped by one of the men during the altercation, fought them off in order to save the couple's photos. Although this was very noble and brave, it was also a huge gamble to fight off someone brandishing a gun. Luckily, he escaped the incident unhurt, but it raises many serious questions for photographers who have now become targets for criminals due to the expensive gear they carry with them. Some San Francisco-based photographers have now decided to boycott shoots in the city altogether, and others feel that they have no choice but to continue shooting in what is a very popular area for their clients.
Although risk is always part of the game when a photographer ventures out with expensive gear, is it time for us to take extra precautions before working in big cities? Outside of refusing to shoot in an area completely, what can we do to protect ourselves and our gear? As someone who regularly shoots in New York, I am very interested in your thoughts in the comments below.
As I said, crime is a problem everywhere, including in CA. Who is making this political? Those who pretend that CA's problems are the result of Democratic politicians being "soft on crime", "defunding police", etc. Those are myths pumped out by propagandists like Fox News and Russian Television. At the same time, those hypocrites ignore worse or equal crime in Republican-led states, as if they somehow have crime under control.
Walgreens has thousands of stores in the USA and is always opening and closing stores, for many reasons, including shoplifting. In 2015, Walgreens closed around 200 stores to cut costs, and in 2019 Walgreens announced the closure of 200 more locations. But they close a few stores in San Francisco and the fox newsies pretend it's all the Democrats' fault.
There you go making this all political again. I see what your agenda is.
I was responding to those who make it political. To respond to their claims, it's necessary to respond to their politics.
Due to a lack of law enforcement and pro criminal laws, CA has been losing many businesses. It is rare for organized retail theft groups to get caught, and when they do, they often at most get citations.
The massive uptick started after theft below $950 in a single hiest was reduced from jail time, to a citation, paired with rules disallowing the use of any force on people engaged in property crime. For example, if someone is in your store and are actively and brazenly robbing the place, if you try to physically impede them, even by locking the doors to detain them until the police arrive, you (the store owner or worker) will be charged with a crime that carries jail time while the criminal who robbed the place may at best get a citation/ ticket and be on their way.
It is why it is common to see store security standing by while criminals loot and rob the store, it is not that they are unwilling to do their job, it is that they legally cannot without facing criminal charges.
This is such a simplistic argument it can’t possibly be right. Go here and see the real data for yourself:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_v...
Notice how the top 10 are all Blue states. Arkansas is blue, right? 🤪
Sadly, Republican-led red states are very soft on crime, emboldening criminals to commit the most crimes per capita there.
Perhaps. There are other confounding factors as well. As I understand things, Red governments are less likely to have robust policies establishing social safety nets, as they either legitimately or in bad faith buy into disproven meritocratic ideals. As a result the poorest people end up proportionally poorer in these areas, and have little to no backstops. The bar of necessity for these people is placed such that for many people crime comes within the appropriate risk calculus to try and better their abject situations.
Poor people commit crimes as a survival strategy, or as unwitting participants of an environment that reinforces such behaviour. The rich commit crimes out of greed.
And yes there are exceptions, obviously, but on population-wide scales these trends can be plainly noted.
You are correct: there are other factors. I'm just using the Fox news junkies' illogical arguments against them. Their red states have lots of crime, including the highest homicide rates, so their red state officials must be soft on crime.
Typically gang violence needs to be analyzed separately if trying to determine safety for the average citizen, especially in drug and trafficking corridors (areas through multiple states where cartels and gangs battle for control for areas where they can reliably traffic in drugs and humans) where intense gang violence regularly takes place since drugs and human trafficking are a multi-billion dollar criminal industry, and many gangs and cartels want a piece of that pie, this is why a number of states have been complaining so much about the border crisis.
Ya. Alaska and that pesky borer with Canada. All that Canadian gang violence.
Good non-sequitur though, as out of that top 10 list only New Mexico and Arizona share a border with Mexico, and California and Texas don’t make the top 10.
I recommend learning about the border crisis, especially in relation to drug and human trafficking corridors, and the paths taken to reach various population centers.
Those corridors are worth tens of billions of dollars. Drugs and trafficking doesn't stop at a border state. It extends throughout the country and up to Canada. Cartels are not I terested in limiting their consumer base.
Cartels make a lot of money, with an overall annual sale estimated to be nearly 500 billion dollars. You can bet they are not getting that kind of money from 3rd world countries. Furthermore, the US is not the only country in the region where such drugs are sold.
Once you are willing to learn about that, you will understand why certain border states want to close the gaps that the cartels are using.
I’m not super interested as it neither affects me nor does it do anything but support my previous thesis.
In general:
The poor turn to crime as a survival strategy.
The rich/powerful turn to crime out of greed for more riches and more power.
If you want to lower violent crime, improve the material conditions of the least fortunate. If you want to stop white collar crime, legislate, regulate, investigate, and prosecute.
Anyway, you’ve become distracted from your original point, which was talking about how guns lower crime - an easy argument to poke holes in. Hence why you’re here talking about Mexican drug cartels I suppose, as opposed to how America’s crime rates compare to countries which have gun control laws. And more socialist viewpoints on societal safety nets.
Learn about gang on gang violence. The rates of it are insanely high along drug and human trafficking corridors. The criminals like that are different from the average neighborhood street gang, as they are used to stuff like this.
https://youtu.be/wIQK5tx2OWM
https://youtu.be/_Wv1W0m4eOo
https://youtube.com/shorts/CpnIz0WOk2Y?feature=share
Overall with most common criminals that they are looking for victims and not fights.
in the drug and human trafficking corridors, thee gangs there are looking for fights, and go in knowing that they are facing other armed gang members.
When billions of dollars are on the line, their main trafficking arteries will be points of conflict. The only groups the cartels have been unwilling to go toe to toe with, is the US military.
Maybe you should take a class or two on sociology and psychology.
And statistics.
If needed, also check out
https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/downloads
https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/home
The FBI UCR page and look at the rates for each state and breakdown of categories of crime.
Consider which types of crime have more of an impact on the average law abiding citizen.
For example, if you are a law abiding, which would bother you more, someone breaking into your home and then stealing your stuff, assaulting you and your family members before using your car as a second getaway vehicle, or you watching the local news and finding that yet another cartel linked gang member had a violent interaction with another cartel linked gang member.
If you look at it properly, by number of incidents instead of some rate. It tells a whole different story. The number of actual people affected.
😂 oof, good grief man, you’re trying to make the case that the number of incidents per the entire population isn’t relevant. That’s just the goofiest argument I’ve ever seen anyone make.
Objectively, a city of 20 million people that suffers 200 homicides a year is doing a much better job at keeping homicides down than a city of 1 million people that has 100 homicides a year.
At this point you’re falling back on kindergarten logic, there’s no point in even paying attention to you.
Like, if you don’t understand percentages or proportionality how do you manage to do your taxes every year?! Or heck, how do you manage to work out how many stops of flash to use, it’s a logarithmic scale 🤣
While rates are highly important, it is also important to understand where the bulk of the crime is focused. for example to the general public, a city where the bulk of the violent crime rate is made up of good people being victimized by violent criminals (burglaries, home invasions, muggings, assaults, etc.), is far more hellish for the people, than a bunch of criminals in a gang linked to the sinaloa cartel regularly fighting with the gang linked to the jalisco cartel, and through their interactions with each other, they are filling hospital beds and body bags.
If the first example, the average person is in fear because they are getting their car constantly broken into, along with being mugged, and having their home broken into.
In the second example, they are seeing a bunch of gang on gang violence on the local news, but they are glad that they are not targeting the average citizen.
Black Z Eddie doesn't understand what a rate is, or pretends not to understand. But if Fox News told Black Z Eddie that red states had lower violent crime rates, he'd be blaring that horn here. In reality red states have WORSE violent crime rates, so he pretends the rate doesn't matter. The ironic thing is that by pretending the actual violent crime rate doesn't matter, he's damaging his own argument.
And, therein lies the problem. You look at it as some rate or percentage. You act like 2200 dead don't matter since there's so many of them out there anyway.
--- "Or heck, how do you manage to work out how many stops of flash to use, it’s a logarithmic scale"
Sounds like you haven't use flash. You don't use rates or percentage, you use stops. It gets easier as you use it. I promise.
There he goes again ... Black Z Eddie announcing to the world the he doesn't understand that a higher violent crime & homicide rate is WORSE for real people. It means they are in more danger and at greater risk of being dead due to violent crime. Black Z Eddie doesn't know what a rate is. Don't be like Black Z Eddie.
This might be the most nonsensical article ever posted on Fstoppers. It starts exaggerating right at the title with “photographers,” even though this article only covers an isolated incident and no source for other incidents is provided.
Then it goes on to question whether all American cities are suddenly unsafe for photographers, which is nothing more than wild speculation based on this seemingly isolated incident.
This isn’t just low-hanging fear mongering clickbait using the all too common urban villain San Francisco, it’s also really really bad journalism.
--- "this article only covers an isolated incident"
1. https://fstoppers.com/legal/photographer-robbed-gunpoint-his-camera-gear...
2. https://petapixel.com/2022/03/28/camera-crew-robbed-of-35000-in-gear-at-...
3. https://www.dpreview.com/news/5527222492/caught-on-video-photographers-r...
And, this is just from what I recall. And, I have shitty memory. Isolated my ass.
While this isn't an isolated incident it really isn't a nationwide problem as the article suggests. This is a California problem...and well a probably a Chicago problem too.
This has become a huge problem in the Bay Area. Almost every incident like this you’re likely to come across is from that locality. Nationwide problem? Not really
It is a major issue that is growing exponentially worse. Given the overpriced nature of photography equipment, it is a target for criminals, and if nothing changes, it will ruin many jobs and businesses, unless your wedding clients will be willing to hold their sessions in randomly selected uninhabited locations for safety reasons.
The locations where camera equipment can be taken to is shrinking day by day.
For example, if you want to experience faster than light travel, try using a decent camera in NYC and and see how fast your camera leaves your possession. :)
I live on the Bay Area and always try to avoid going to San Francisco or Oakland, with this video now looks like we need to be more cautious.
Interesting set of comments for this one. Some people don't seem to realize that this isn't a one-off incident. It's an epidemic and there is apparently no political will to do anything about it. Hiring security doesn't work. It wasn't long ago that private security officers were shot and killed while trying to protect a photographer. It has happened to news crews while on the air. One photographer was followed home for over 40 miles and robbed. The DA doesn't want to prosecute these thugs. Why? They've had a hard life? The police have no interest in shutting down street markets that openly sell these stolen items. But God help the individual that tries to do what the police refuse to do and address the problem in a way that provides a disincentive to the thieves. They *will* be prosecuted. It is mind boggling to me that voters are willing to put up with this cr@p. San Francisco is the most beautiful city in the country but it's not safe to walk the streets.
Due to how the crime classifications were changed, the police legally cannot shut those markets down since under the laws the people voted for in CA, that level of misdemeanor, requires the officer to witness the theft with their own eyes or equipment in order to take action. It is similar to how police will not ticket someone based just on a call or video submitted. At best they can send an officer to the area and if the officer witnesses any crimes in progress, then action can be taken, but info provided by civilian 3rd parties cannot be used for low classifications of misdemeanor.
This all puts criminals at a massive advantage and allows for brazen crimes in broad daylight, so long as they are not doing it directly in front of a police officer.
Due to Republican-led red states being soft on crime, those states have the highest rates of homicide. Sad how criminals are at a massive advantage in Republican-led red states.
You keep deflecting. We are talking about bold broad daylight crime and a mass shoplifting epidemic in California but you keep defending California for some reason.
You're wildly exaggerating the problem in California vs. other states. California does have a shoplifting problem (as do many other states), but it's not because the CA politicians are somehow pro-crime or don't want policing. That's the nutty propaganda pushed out by the likes of fox news and russian state television.
And I'm not "defending" California. Just pointing out that other states have serious problems with crime too. And some of the worst of them are RED states, which have the highest rates of homicide and violent crime. That means people in the red states are at higher risk of violent crime. That means their elected officials are doing a worse job at fighting crime.
Disappointing.
Some things to think about when photographing, #1, situational awareness, #2 carrying some form of self protection, in my case a concealed pistol,
You can either maintain situational awareness, or you can focus on your [photography] job.
You cannot do both.
The primary issue is the places where these crimes are rampant, the self protection aspect is not allowed. Areas that readily allow people to defend themselves. Sadly those restrictions embolden the criminals because they can be confident that their intended victims will not have an effective means to defend themselves from the crime.
Damn. I used to go around the city with my Nikon F4 and several lenses, taking street photos for my photography class assignments during my college years at the Academy of Art and I was never in danger. But that was in the mid 90's.
San Francisco has a huge problem with crime. It's irrelevant what happens in other places. The story is about SF and yes, you have to be super careful about shooting there.
I started booking photography sessions over the last 3 years, and as my gear got more expensive and my camera bag full, being robbed or attacked physically while out shooting became a valid concern. Sometimes I don't meet the client until the day of the shoot, many times at a park or locations that don't necessary have a lot of people around. I am the owner of a very successful Martial Arts Studio and Self-Defense business in Connecticut and have been teaching all over the state with our team for over 20 years, and I still fear something like this could happen. I am prepared to give up my gear, if that is all they want as it is not worth it to fight back as hard as it is to give up your camera/lenses, but if it becomes physical, I am prepared to defend myself. I feel everyone should at least take a REPUTABLE AND EFFECTIVE self-defense course at least once, but probably yearly would be better. It's like CPR, you may never need it, but it could save your life and you should take a course more than once to keep it fresh in your mind. As far as guns go, I am a registered gun owner who sometimes have my gun concealed, but it won't do me much good if I am caught off guard and have a camera in my hand (And, I much prefer "shooting" photos and not guns...lol). Also, many places don't allow you to carry a gun, even if you have a permit, so it won't help there. Your hands are always with you. Having insurance to protect you in case of very expensive gear helps too, so consider that. Stay safe my friends!