Ansel Adams Act

[Sandy Witvoet]

Just saw this recently.... thought that many here would be interested in it. According to the bill, it will restore photographers' rights to photograph under Freedom of Speech, without permits or fines..... Has anyone else seen/heard this yet?

https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/5893/text

[dankearl]

Sandy,
This is just grandstanding by an idiot member of congress.
The proposal by the National park service was put out last September, misrepresented by an Idiot at my hometown newspaper and jumped on by bloggers everywhere.
The proposal to require permits was only for federal wilderness areas, not national parks.
It was only for commercial filming, in other words, commercials, not photographers in general.
Wilderness areas are off limit to vehicles and commercial filming generally requires transport of equipment and the park service wants to make sure that larger commercial ventures are not being done in protected areas.
That is it.
The usual internet uproar over nothing from the usual anti government crowd and a congressman seeking headlines.

[Sandy Witvoet]

Sandy,
This is just grandstanding by an idiot member of congress.
The proposal by the National park service was put out last September, misrepresented by an Idiot at my hometown newspaper and jumped on by bloggers everywhere.
The proposal to require permits was only for federal wilderness areas, not national parks.
It was only for commercial filming, in other words, commercials, not photographers in general.
Wilderness areas are off limit to vehicles and commercial filming generally requires transport of equipment and the park service wants to make sure that larger commercial ventures are not being done in protected areas.
That is it.
The usual internet uproar over nothing from the usual anti government crowd and a congressman seeking headlines.
Ok... just thought I'd mention it.... If I am not mistaken, the only sanctioned National Park in the last 14 years has been Sleeping Bear Dunes, here in NW MI. The rest are just designated wilderness areas, and not necessarily inaccessible (SB Dunes was previously a wildnerness area and totally accessible by a variety of means) ..... I've not seen "commercial" as a def. ... the original prop looked pretty generic to me. Should we call a rep an Idiot for introducing a bill that perhaps may help? I will be happy to submit to being an Idiot in error and would like to see more on this subject.

[dankearl]

Sandy,
I was not referring to you at all....
Thanks for bringing up the issue.
It is just that, it has not been portrayed correctly in the media and is not an issue that congress needs to address.
Nothing has been changed, there is no law enacted, the Park service simply put the issue as a proposal and it was to address the commercialization in wilderness areas.
It was not an attack on the first amendment or an attack on photographers.
My comment was directed at the congressman who is attempting to distort and use a non issue for some kind of statement.
That is all....

[David Stephens]

I agree that this Ansel Adams Act looks like grandstanding. It takes next to nothing to "Introduce" a Bill in Congress.

However, there is proposed legislation, intended to cover "commercial" photography and videography (typically with models, support crew, etc.) which has some loose language that some of us were hoping would be tightened up. I'll have to dig around to find the current status. There was a Comment Period ending in early November, which some of us responded to. Here's a Thread over on www.photo.net from last year:

http://photo.net/nature-photography-forum/00cqjZ