The original concept of wilderness promoted by John Muir and the Sierra Club for decades was to set aside lands for people to use, not to exclude people from. The flip-flop occurred in Sierra Club the 1950s and led to the Wilderness Act of 1964, and access to public lands has declined as existing roads are removed, being deemed inappropriate for the new definition of wilderness. This has particular impact for elderly and handicapped visitors who cant hike a long distance. In California the impact of road removal is much greater, since dozens of our wilderness areas are in the Southern California desert, so you have to carry gallons of water to make an extended visit. The changing definition of wilderness makes for fascinating history to read, but sheltering it from us instead of leaving it accessible to us is a bit of a bummer as my knees wear out. Hopefully they wont remove the horse packing operations as well (in the few wilderness areas where they exist), since increasingly that provides the only viable access to many areas for a growing segment of the population. With regards to wilderness in particular, it was explained to me that landscape photography can occur anywhere and doesnt need to be in wilderness, but somehow horseback riding (horse packing operations) arent subject to similar logic. A photo of a particular stunning wilderness location cant happen anywhere but in that exact location. Permits for still photography starts at $150 for 50 person-days (the $1000 may be for filming and news crews), but regional offices are short-staffed, so applying takes up to 6 months for your permit paperwork to process. Its not like this really works for landscape photography, where you want to go out with very short notice, mainly on days with interesting weather. Theres also no reasonable expectation that the results from any particular day are commercial, i.e. will sell. Its all an enormously speculative investment on the part of the photographer. The first year I applied I was told the fees would be $400, but I wast told why. Not having a crystal ball on workshop attendance, I had guessed 8 or 10 people per day as a reasonable not to exceed number for the first year, so I had accidentally grossly over-estimated. I later learned to be more conservative, and you can adjust numbers to match actual attendance. The situation is perhaps worst for aspiring photographers, who are often asked for images for free use, yet the assumption and agreement is that you have such authority to publish the photo. Many photo sharing sites for example are very specific that any liability that comes from that sites use (which itself might be interpreted as commercial) rests with the photographer. So theoretically you could get fined for allowing use which resulted in no revenue to you. Its a crazy, outdated model which assumes that photography is a highly profitable activity, and that the photographer has the ability to know what commercial use offer might come down the road at any point in the distant future.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 20:49:02 +0000
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