City Hall - Albany, New York (cell phone picture)
c 2006 Curt Miller

Roof Detail, State Street - Albany, New York
c 2006 Curt Miller

Out Romping on Lark Street - Albany, New York
c 2006 Curt Miller

The Daily bLog
Complacent I'm not. Got nabbed by the cops today on Lark Street at noontime for what I do - and have been doing for 35 years - taking street pictures. Yup, a common criminal am I. I just left Ben and Jerry's on Lark Street after a lunchtime meeting with ADK Executive Director Neil Woodworth and ADK past vice president Keith Martin. I wasn't out the door ten feet when I spotted a group of teenage girls frolicking up Lark Street in the warm sunshine of a perfect spring day. I quickly brought my Leica to my eye for a quick shot. As soon as I dropped the camera from my eye, I heard a voice coming from a police cruiser across the street, where Officer Krupke lay in wait for pond scum like me, protecting the victimized public from the savage ravaging from my Leica's lens. Caught!

"What are you doing, asks Krupke?" "I'm taking pictures," says I. I went on my way. Not satisfied that I wasn't going to knock over the candy store at the next corner, he piloted his Crown Vic cruiser in a 180 and pulled me over. "What are you doing?" "I'm taking street pictures...I'm a street photographer and I'm within my rights and am not breaking any laws and just "doing what a street photographer does...take pictures on the street." Why are you stopping me," I ask. Not much response, so I raise it up a couple of notches: "WHY are you stopping me?" These guys don't back down even when they're wrong. Well, no need to bore you, my gentle reader, with the idiocy of the following ten minutes of harrassment, but suffice it to say that Albany residents will be much safer in their beds tonight with Curt Miller and his Leica off the streets!

Friends, this country is becoming scarier by the day. I want to thank Officer Krupke and the Albany Police Department for doing their part to ensure the trend continues uninterupted.