At MARC, a Snapshot of Post-9/11 Excess

The chief says his officers pay no attention to looks: "It doesn't matter if you're white, black, Asian -- if you take several pictures, people get nervous. I'm an African American and grew up in the city, so I don't make any distinctions by how people look."

As reasonable as DeLeaver sounds, the fact is that the patchwork of security rules imposed on Americans since Sept. 11 is utterly inconsistent and often represents more hysteria than rational strategy.

Second only to the bizarre fixation we have with the meaningless ritual of checking ID cards at building entrances (You have a card with your photo on it! You must be a good guy!), the effort to halt people from taking pictures of building exteriors is surpassingly silly.

Although police try to stop tourists from taking snaps of prominent Washington buildings, every feature of those buildings is documented in detail in art, journalism and official photography available to anyone. Heck, on the Web sites of many transit systems, including Metro, you can find extensive collections of photographs of their facilities.

MARC enforces one standard for photographers. Metro has another: It does not restrict photography at trains or stations. "Law enforcement officers nationwide do contact people who are taking photos to determine if this is a suspicious activity," Richard White, Metro's then-chief, said in an online chat with riders last year. "Bottom line is that visitors/tourists who want to take some snapshots in our system are welcome to do so."

Gadhoke's teacher suggests that students carry their class registration ticket to show to police who question their presence. "Look, these days, frankly, I have no problem to anybody questioning me," Rosen said. "I'm hardly the picture of an Arab terrorist. But the main thing is that everybody be treated the same."

That's Gadhoke's concern, too. "The threat is real, and the officer was just doing his job," she said. "But the question about my nationality really humiliated me. I never felt like I was being watched for what I look like before. This has really stifled the inspiration I have about photography right now. You really don't know where you can go and take pictures. This wasn't a federal building; this was a small town."

(On Thursday, three weeks after the incident, Gadhoke got a call from a Maryland transit police sergeant saying his suspicious-person investigation was complete and she had nothing to worry about.)

For the class assignment, Gadhoke ended up taking pictures in her house -- apples, furniture, shadows. But there was no Joy of Photography. "We have to live not in fear," she said, "but live in pride that we are a strong country. We have to be clear about who we are and not turn on our own but focus instead on those who are attacking us."

The last thing I need is a stack of train photos, but after talking to Gadhoke, I felt compelled to head out to the Odenton station with a camera. One morning last week, I stood on the platform for 20 minutes, shooting the lampposts, the station house, the tracks. Nobody said a word. Maybe it was the way I look.

For more on trains and photography, check out the blog, Raw Fisher, at http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher.