Tripods and the Cityscape

A recent post on MalekTips  offers reasons "Why You Should Avoid Using Tripods in the City."  When I was a photography student, my teachers were pretty firm about the reasons for using a tripod. Ken Milburn, my Sessions mentor,  once said that if you dislike tripods, too bad.  Better pictures trump everything.   But this posting raised some valid reasons for leaving the three-legged friend behind when photographing in the city.

According to MalekTips, using a tripod for cityscape photography can attract unwanted attention and even lead to problems with the law.

The posting points out that amateur photographers using hand-held equipment rarely have problems with security or police on city streets.  Set up a tripod, though, and your status may change from tourist to professional in the eyes of post-9/11 law enforcement, opening the doors for anything from general hassling to arrest.  In some areas there are restrictions on photographing certain landmarks, government buildings and transit stations. In others, a permit for professional photography is required.  So since it's important to be able  to photograph the urban landscape unobtrusively,  the MalekTips piece concludes with advice on avoiding camera shake with your handheld equipment.

The question of using a tripod or not actually speaks to some bigger issues about what urban photography (cityscape, street photography, dereliction or whatever you care to call it) really is, and what we who practice it really do. I think that the element of surprise, of finding the art in everyday reality, is key to this kind of photography. In a way we're practicing stealth photography -- capturing images unposed, unstaged, without the artifice of stage direction or deliberate composition.     And if that's true, then using a tripod might well interfere with that spirit of spontaneity and photographie verite that characterizes the best of urban landscape photography.

Comments, anyone? Have you run into problems (legal or otherwise) photographing city streets? What's your take on the tripod debate?