Berkeley's Finest Photo

Photographer’s Note

Where you have cars and pedestrians, you have police officers. I guess a conversation about America's fixation on automobiles wouldn't be complete without at least one photo of police officers doing their duty.

I stumbed into this scene during a visit late last summer to north Berkeley. It took me a while to sort out what was happening.

When I first came upon the scene there were four motorcycle policemen lined up on this side street. One by one they gunned their engines and sped into Solano Avenue, a major thoroughfare with shops lining both sides of the street. You see one of those officers in the distance wheeling his motorcycle through the intersection as these two fellows stood alert for their opportunity to go into action.

And what exactly were they doing? It seems a fellow officer dressed in civilian clothes was crossing the street to the immediate left. You will note the two officers have their heads turned in that direction. The man used the crosswalk, which in California is hallowed ground. If you are in the crosswalk, all vehicles must come to a halt. The moment a car failed to stop, speeding past this intersection, one of the officers would take off after him and issue a citation. The man working with them, simply crossed the street, waited a few moments before turning around and crossing again. These police officers were very busy men, indeed!

Pedestrians appreciate the effort, no doubt. Drivers are perhaps less enthusiastic, though such experiences surely make them safer drivers. We love our cars, but have, eternally, a love/hate relationship with the police... ;-)

TheG1, RGatward, Galeota, torben, bertolucci, Rinie_Hoff, djslim, JonteW has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

RGatward (19747) 2005-03-03 4:05

Interesting scene. In some countries using a cross walk in a way that asserts your right as a pedestrian could be considered an 'unsafe act', though it seems not there. In Maine I noticed that pedestrians also have right of way crossing an intersection along the route of the major road, against cars turning into or out of the minor road. I was amazed to find even delivery trucks observing that rule. The same rule applies here but is almost universally ignored.

Galeota (10334) 2005-03-03 4:57

This is unbelievable. The perfect example of a system based on repression, rather than prevention. They are just waiting (and we could say almost provoking or favouring a situation to happen) that drivers make a mistake to issue them a citation. I would eventually have prefered to see them slowing down all cars passing by, and make a ponctual recall to each driver individually.

I do agree that pedestrians are frequently abused in their physical integrity (at least here in Europe), and some drivers should see their license simply supressed. But the idea of having a police force building a whole scenery to catch people this way seems a bit abusive to me (of course I can understand them having this kind of strategy when dealing with organized crime, but here we're talking about people like you and I who are not perfect and should therefore be sometimes recalled to their duties rather than punished systematically even if with reason).

torben (3084) 2005-03-03 14:35

My first reaction on seeing the photo and reading the first few lines of the note was: doing their duty, right! - they are just standing around posing instead of catching burglars, what is this, err that, country coming to? Cops often look posing on photos, wonder why hmmm...
But now I read that they _are_ in fact working with their little trap for bully drivers. I'm not so sure what to think of it, in a way it seems to be "bad sportsmanship", sneaky, but on the other hand, as frequent pedestrian I think some bully drivers actually need to have their cars taken away instead of just a silly little fine, soooo eehhh...
Oh - and the photo looks good with the two foreground cops and the STOP letters on the road nicely balanced in the widescreen view. The background is perhaps a little to busy, using a larger aperture might have blurred it a bit, but of course scenes like this come and go in a split second.

bertolucci (11976) 2005-03-04 3:35

Hi Curtis, Law enforcement is certainly a bit different in America. The trap pictured here is indeed a bit sneaky but as apedestrian I agree with Torben on this issue ;-) The compo and framing is fine and the DoF could indeed be handled a bit differently, but hey, it's a candid shot, and a great one at that, so these kind of rules don't apply here. Oh yes, I also had some fun determinating the make of the motorcycles. The left one is obvious and I think the right one is a big Honda ;-)
Very fine job, Curtis.

lestans (15456) 2005-03-04 5:32

Ha ha!! I think tha you should send to Italy some of your American policemen, so Italian drivers will start to stop when pedestrian have to pass on the white stripes! I find safer both to drive and to walk in USA roads than in Italy!

Luko (13894) 2005-03-07 11:31

Waitaminute! "papa-papapa-paaa-pa"... this is Chip and What's-his-name-again smiling brightly to the wind on their two wheelers! But hey, I don't remember the scenario what so dull that the bad guys were drivers who happened to cross the crosswalk... disappointing isn't it?

Yep, there's a bias going towards repression going on for the last two decades, just imagine how many people would look at a tellie serie involving 2 motocops hunting for pedestrian incivilities...I'm afraid our society first ask policemen to be profitable cash machines trying to multiply instant fines rather than enforce real citizen security.

However, I don't care about cars and don't own nor rent any... another way not to be bothered by police or petrol tax considerations...

As for your photo, it's exactly the appropriate format you chose : the way you split it in halves is very effective.
Perhaps I would only pick too much DoF.. I guess something like f/5.6 would be far sufficient. (haa, sorry... Torben already mentioned that one..)

Photo Information

Copyright: Curtis Grindahl (cgrindahl) (6109)
Genre: People
Medium: Color
Date Taken: 2004-08-19
Categories: Daily Life
Camera: Canon EOS Digital Rebel, Canon 28-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS, SanDisk Ultra II, Hoya Super HMC 72mm UV
Exposure: f/9.0, 1/200 seconds
More Photo Info: view
Photo Version: Original Version
Date Submitted: 2005-03-03 2:41