Earlier this month I went with my brother, a friend and his wife to Valley of Fire which is a State park in Nevada 45 miles NE of Las Vegas to take some pictures. My friend and his wife drive his 2008 Corvette, me and my brother drive seperate. We pay a per car fee to get into the park 5 or 6 bucks. No problem.
We drive along and stop from time to time to take pictures of the deep red cliffs, petroglyphs, etc. At one stop my friend parks his car in front of this big red cliff face and we (me, my brother and friend) all start shooting with our high end dslr camera shots of his car with this incredible background. When out of seemingly nowhere a park ranger comes driving up, quite fast, and parks between us and the car. He gets out and starts firing off questions like, why are we there?, who are we shooting for? Does the car belong to one of us? Is the girl in the car a professional model? and on and on.
We assure him we were just there for our own personal pictures, we were not shooting for profit, etc. The way he kept after us I could tell he didn't believe us, but it actually was the honest truth. He told us he was going to fill in his supervisor and would probably be back and that we would have to purchase a permit if they decided we were shooting 'pro' and we could even be fined for not obtaining one in the first place. (Nothing was posted about this at the entry gate).
He never returned so I guess we were OK. On the way out I asked the guy at the visitor center and exit gate how much a photography permit was to shoot commercially there. He told me he didn't have a clue and that it was probably posted on the wed site. So when I get home I look it up and the web site tells you to inquire at the visitor center!
So we did not have to put our cameras away, but, give me a break! I am hearing more and more about having to pay for a permit to take pictures if they are for commercial gain. I mean I pay to register my business, I pay park entry fees... WHY do they think this is a requirement? What does it regulate? It's just another way to make a buck and it really gets under my skin.
As it turns out One of the shots I got on that shoot turned out really nice so I had a couple printed on metallic 16x20. One for me one for my friend with the Vette. Now some other people who have seen it want a copy so I can make a few bucks selling them and I am even considering going to Chevy dealers to see if they want copies to hang in their dealerships or offices. One guy who owns a Vette dealership wants one already. So now that I can make money on it I wonder if I need to retroactively purchase the permit? 