I never thought that doing something totally absurd could be so much fun! Ashley and I went to Alamo Square on a beautiful, sunshiny Thursday afternoon and staked five signs in the grass. These were notices prohibiting photography. Then, we sat down to see what people's reactions would be to the signs.
As I mentioned in my previous blog, we wondered whether people would get angry, think it was a joke, ignore the signs, or maybe even throw the signs away. We found out today.
One woman said "This is cr@p! This is a bunch of cr@p! What if tourists come by and see these signs? An ordinance prohibiting photography would be impossible to enforce! I hope you take these signs away with you." Well, there you have it - an angry person.
Some people read the signs and began talking to each other. They looked around to see if others were noticing the signs, and then just walked away.
Others took pictures of the signs - thinking this was a funny joke. One man picked up a sign, read it, and then stuck it carefully back in the ground! I thought that was precious!
Another man asked me "Do you know what this is all about?" "Yes," I answered, "it is an Intervention". I explained that we wanted to see what would happen if we posted an absurd notice in a public space. What would people's reaction be to being prohibited from photographing a quintessential San Francisco scene. He laughed and said it was brilliant, just brilliant, and proceeded to twitter about it. (Read Ashley's blog to find out what he twittered). While I was talking with him, a second guy walked up to us and asked if the signs were "real". That kept the conversation going and another question was whether the Committee for the Preservation of San Francisco Scenery was trying to keep the scenery as it is, unchanging. I said that we don't want photography to wear away the scenery - that's the reason for the prohibition (tongue in cheek, of course). We all laughed.
One group of young women had their picture taken behind one of the signs. The guy taking their photograph said that San Francisco is the place where laws are made to be broken. Ha! And, right before they left, they pulled up the sign and dropped it on the ground. That was our only casualty. 
One guy looked at a sign and just shook his head in disbelief and walked away. Actually, many people looked at the signs and got closer to take a better look. What followed was the shaking of the head, or even scratching of the head.
There was a professional photographer set up with a couple of reflectors, strobes and hefty equipment taking glamour shots of a model, down near the bottom of the hill. Even he walked over to read one of the signs when a passerby alerted him to the "Photography Prohibited" notice. I couldn't hear him, but he just shrugged his shoulders and went back to his picture taking,
And so, we had angry people, disbelieving people, surprised people, delighted people, rebellious people and recording people. All in all, it was interesting to watch the people's responses. What surprised me the most though, was that more of the signs were not pulled up or taken away. Go figure.
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