I woke up at 6:00am in order to be in Atlantic Station by 7:00 to take pictures of the sun coming up. It was for work (why else would I be up at 6am?) and I was approached by a security guard. I explained why I was there and she accepted my answer and let me continue. The second security guard, however, radio-ed me in and told me to stop taking pictures. I had to comply. Why? Atlantic Station is private property - even the streets - so they have the legal right to tell people to not take pictures.
I understand that Atlantic Station is primarily an open-air mall and when you have so many high-end (or quasi-high-end) stores you need to be able to keep them secure, but crap, taking pictures? Maybe they should tighten security and prohibit people from going there altogether.
That sucks…those silly pricks. Want me to beat them up?!
And did you get pics of the sunrise with all the icky clouds?! If you didn’t…I’m sorry you had to get up that early…
Those jerks. Sheesh….that’s really all I have to say about that
Check out http://www.flikr.com and do a specific search on “Atlantic Station”…there are thousands of AS photos. If you didn’t know AS is listed on the State’s Department of Homeland Security list and would be quite a visible and public place to do something bad. Casing the place, by taking photos is something they have to pay attention to. While you may not have “looked like a terrorist” the politically-corect world we operate in requires everyone be treated the same with a blanket policy.
Everytime I can remember, AS has granted access for photography if just given a heads up.
I had to take pictures from a specific corner at a specific time of day for lighting purposes. The picture above was linked from Flickr, so I obviously checked that option.
Secondly, my point was that you shouldn’t need permission to take a picture on a street, no matter how paranoid Homeland Security is.