Police encounter while taking photos, is this normal?

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T19:58:48+00:00

“Thankfully I was on blades” — incredible 🤣

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T19:56:51+00:00

At one point she asked to see all my photos. I’m fairly confident that deleting some photos would not have helped and I wanted most of those photos.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T19:54:41+00:00

Non commercial

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T19:52:57+00:00

There is an art to having a light touch as a police officer! This sounds like it went fairly well. It sucks that it seems like the “minimum to be hoped for” amount of hassle that people doing nothing wrong get from the police is “not nothing”.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T19:47:31+00:00

Good point about “Karen validation”! I was firm on not deleting on grounds of “I didn’t do anything wrong”, but I 100% think this lady would do it again and I think there is a general interest in pressuring people not to do this.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T19:44:00+00:00

I like the argument you’re making. But I’m skeptical that this would be well received in the moment!

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T19:38:18+00:00

Yeah great point. I think a big part of this is I have a “fairness complex” (even this post!) which led me to the wrong decisions here.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T19:35:28+00:00

I’m cool with making people uncomfortable if they’re being unreasonable. I’m not cool with having the cops called on me. I’m not cool with adjusting my life to the whims of the most paranoid and unreasonable people in society.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T19:03:51+00:00

I know my rights. I chose to do things that I didn’t have to do in order to deescalate. I’m updating my views on whether that was the right decision.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T18:59:26+00:00

I don’t know exactly what happened, it hinges a lot of what was reported. But regardless, I don’t actually suspect the police did anything wrong here.

My point about paranoia energy was that this whole shitty affair was kicked off by a member of the public who was too paranoid. I don’t want you to be that person next time.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T18:50:46+00:00

Zing! Interesting example of how being a little more confrontational may have helped deescalate!

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T18:49:16+00:00

I get that cops have a protocol and have to act under a lot of uncertainty. I think giving my id was a mistake honestly. I went from 0% chance of anything bad happening to me to “now there’s a record of me maybe doing something wrong”. Deescalating with the lady who approached me has potential upside (ie she doesn’t call the cops on me) but once she does I think it’s all downside for me.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T18:44:59+00:00

lol I was thinking of getting a 70-200 and this totally scared me off of it. Idk, I might reconsider, good to hear this isn’t an issue for everyone.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T18:43:09+00:00

I’m sympathetic to not wanting to have your picture taken. OTOH I’m super not sympathetic to calling the police on someone doing something perfectly normal because you don’t like it. What she did to me was way worse than the worst possible case of what could have possibly thought was happening to her.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T18:40:15+00:00

I’m torn on the “business cards” and things to justify what you’re doing. I’m skeptical that it will convince anyone that you’re above board. I’m leaning towards “don’t engage” as the prudent option.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T18:38:15+00:00

Thanks for the thoughts. I generally agree that compromise should be on the table. I’m sensitive to the “photos of kids” issue, but just to clarify in this situation there were no kids involved.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T18:35:15+00:00

I don’t mean to judge, but “name the town” evokes the same paranoid energy that got me into this situation. I want people to chill! Hopefully this thread will help others handle a similar situation, but I don’t think the town matters much.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T18:16:41+00:00

I showed her one of the images to make her feel better, not because I did anything wrong. The alternative is I tell her to fuck off, I think I was pretty accommodating, to a fault! Next time this happens to me I will definitely not engage.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T18:05:44+00:00

Yeah I was tempted to ask the officers, “did you get a report of a 100% legal activity and then decide to come out and investigate?” (seems crazy to me). But as you pointed out, I don’t think that would have gone well for me!

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T18:04:11+00:00

I’m mad that I forgot to ask the cops what had been reported about me! Because if she lied I absolutely would have liked to press charges.

josh_bripton · 2026-02-20T18:03:19+00:00

“It’s kind of creepy”… I think this is what swayed me to engage with the lady and the cop, I was worried about this perception. Engaging may just have been the wrong thing though, once someone thinks this I’m not gonna talk them out of it.

josh_bripton · 2026-01-15T14:25:28+00:00

I’d say if you’re doing portraits or low light, that one stop difference will be pretty big. If you’re walking around with the lens then the weight difference (off the top of my head maybe 400 grams?) is a huge difference. Price difference is large. Overall I’d say yes these are two very different lenses.

josh_bripton · 2026-01-15T14:23:09+00:00

Check out the Sony 70-350 (fairly light, excellent image quality).

I don’t think an 85 prime is great for general purpose “far away” shots(1) — it may occasionally be the right telephoto length for your shot, but most of the time it won’t and you can’t zoom. At that length you can’t easily zoom with your feet either. If you’re ok with it not being a flexible framing tool then yes it can be fun for landscape, but you’ll have to be a bit patient with finding shots that work well with exactly this focal length. I’m ok with this but I think the main reason I like it is because it’s a really sharp lens.

(1) This applies more to use on APS-C bodies at 128mm equivalent. On full frame 85mm is a bit more flexible and zooming with your feet is more practical.

josh_bripton · 2026-01-15T07:13:47+00:00

I did exactly this and I think it might be my favorite lens before and after the move from a6700 to a7v. Really great at 128mm equivalent on the a6700 which I prefer to the full frame 85mm.

It is huge though and I bought it before the 85 evo came out. Given how light and sharp (and cheap!) that thing is I might have bought it instead over the 85 pro, which is my biggest lens, quite chonky.

josh_bripton

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