Weekend in Sacramento

Earlier this month, my wife and I had a little weekend getaway in Sacramento.

It wasn’t our first visit. Last fall, we also decided to spend some time exploring Sacramento after having simply driven straight through town on our way to somewhere else on past trips. We had a great time then, and we hoped to build on that with some new experiences by making another visit.

Characteristic as it has become for me, I spent a fair amount of mental energy deciding how to photograph the trip. This time around, I decided it would be fun to use film. For daytime shots, I settled on bringing my Nikon F “Apollo” film camera and a 50mm f/1.4 lens. I came prepared with several rolls of film, but I ended up using only one roll of Ilford FP4 Plus.

I ended up getting some halfway decent shots. But overall I was a little disappointed with my output.

On the upside, I was pleasantly surprised to discover the Viewpoint Photographic Art Center, a great little nonprofit run by amateur photographers in the Sacramento area.

But ultimately, I have to confess that our visit this time around wasn’t quite as pleasant as what we experienced before. Unlike our visit last fall, this time around we were in Sacramento during the weekend. We discovered how dead and sterile the downtown area felt.

I did have another new experience on this trip, but it wasn’t a positive one.

Not long after my wife and I arrived at our hotel, the Kimpton Sawyer in downtown Sacramento, we decided to grab a bite to eat down in the hotel bar. I grabbed my Nikon F and slung it over my shoulder. You never know when a photographic opportunity will present itself to you, right? After taking a few steps into the bar area, one of the many security guards on patrol—I never did get to the bottom of why there was so much security at this place—quickly approached me and said that I wasn’t allowed to bring a “professional” camera—his choice of words—into any area of the hotel without a permit from management.

A little dumbfounded, I looked at him, held up my Nikon and its 50mm lens, and said something along the lines of, “Umm... this is an old film camera.” It didn’t matter. Apparently I would have been fine carrying around and using a smartphone camera, but what I had with me was forbidden. We turned around and never went back.

The next day, we headed over to see the Sacramento River Cats, a Triple-A minor league baseball team affiliated with the San Francisco Giants. Again, I had put a good amount of effort into thinking about how I was going to document the experience. I settled on my Nikon FM10, a small 50mm f/2 lens, and a roll of Ilford Delta 3200. I was sure to read the team’s policies to ensure I could get in with my Nikon. Every baseball team has different rules, and the last thing I wanted to do was encounter difficulties.

At the stadium, I took one step past the metal detector when a trio of security guards quickly circled me and said that I wasn’t able to bring my camera in. Yet again, security staff saw something that was not a smartphone, and their head went to “professional” camera—again, their choice of words. One of them said something like, “We can’t have you taking pictures of any signs or players.” Signs?! At the time I thought “signs” meant billboards and advertisements, which of course is ridiculous. In hindsight, though, I think he may have been referring to catcher-to-pitcher signs. But players change signs all the time, and with the advent of PitchCom, hand signs belong to the same era as the Nikon FM10 film camera I had with me. I guess I can understand the team not wanting their players being photographed... maybe? But are minor league players sacrosanct?

Anyway, just like a day earlier, I protested again, this time more exasperated than before: “This is a film camera!” It didn’t matter. The security guys were unmoved. My wife and I turned around, hustled back across the Sacramento River, returned to our hotel room to drop off my forbidden camera, and walked back. We ended up missing the first few innings of the game. I wasn’t happy.

Back at the stadium, I asked to speak to management (this is what I should have done to begin with). To their credit, the Sacramento River Cats’ guest services folks handled the matter with graciousness and understanding. With apologies, they acknowledged that I should have been able to bring my Nikon in. After I returned home, I saw that they clarified and made more specific their policy regarding cameras.

Like I said, all of this was a new experience for me. Twice in as many days, I got turned away from something simply because I had a proper camera on me. In both cases, I asked myself what problem these people were trying to prevent by prohibiting “professional” cameras. Part of the irony of the whole matter was that both 35mm film cameras I had with me on that trip would never have outperformed the resolution of the camera that’s on everyone’s smartphone. But I have to believe that, in the eyes of many, “big camera” equals “bad” no matter what its vintage or recording medium is.

If anything, it was perhaps a wakeup call about widespread perceptions of any proper camera and what the person holding it will do with it. More troubling is how weird people are getting when they see a camera. Although I haven’t been on social media in over a decade—that’s a separate topic about which I could talk someone under the table—I suspect that the ubiquity of smartphone cameras and people’s reluctance to have their likeness splashed across the internet may be the root of all this.

I try my level-headed best to practice my craft with good sense and discretion. I try hard to respect people’s personal space because that’s how I’d like to be treated. This isn’t hard to understand. But sometimes gaining people’s trust feels like a losing battle.

Quite often I look back at the work of photographers from pre-internet days. Even when people knew they were being photographed, I can’t imagine it would have been that big of a deal for them. After all, hordes of people constantly feeding an online juggernaut with content simply didn’t exist then.

Personally speaking, I remember a time as a kid when I was excited see a picture of me appear in a newspaper. That time has well and truly passed.