**UPDATE ON LICENSING OF PHOTOGRAPHERS **
Breaking News:
The Governors of New Jersey, North Carolina, Nebraska and Arizona have issued a joint statement (In Colorado and Washington this means something different) on the licensing of Photographers.
A spokesman for the governors just released this statement:
“We, the governors of the aforementioned states agree that the pain, suffering and humiliation of people getting bad photography has become an epidemic. Tens of millions of people are no longer able to function because of this virulent strain of unprofessionalism.
We have been advised by a group of professional wedding photographers and some photographers with awesome Model Mayhem accounts that in order to maintain the public safety we must adopt new and stringent guidelines for the taking and making of pictures.
We have decided the following:
1. All photographers must be licensed, and that license will include private instruction in the proper use and maintenance of the modern capture device.
2. All photographers must pass a stringent test to prove without a shadow of a doubt that they are indeed capable of a Bat Mitzvah shoot and the occasional Wedding event.
3. In order to make this as painless as possible we have decided to administer and manage the licensing of photographers at our state DMV’s. It only make sense. They have cool testing stuff, and they have cameras there already with many of the DMV workers shooting hundreds of portraits a day. We feel these public servants are sufficiently aware of great photography and will be fair and balanced in their licensing management.
4. The Arizona Photographers Certified Liaison will be Candy Barre, a former model on One Model Place and the winner of the Hooter’s Hotbuns 2001 contest in Tucson, AZ. She has issued this statement: “I am very glad to be chosen to represent the state of Arizona in its crackdown on the illicit photography trade. I have asked for Sheriff Joe (Arpaio) and his deputies to take classes in photography on YouTube and be sufficiently aware of the Inverse Square Law to make quick, on the spot decisions on whether a photographer needs or does not need a license.”
Ms Barre added that she wanted photographers “to know this has nothing to do with any personal vendetta against the stupid wedding photographers who did not sufficiently photoshop my big ass out of my second wedding shots, and caused the image to become viral on Facebook. I will administer my duties to make sure that crap never happens to some other adorable bride with all the power and firepower invested in me by the STATE.”
At the impromptu press conference, a professional photographer in the audience asked how the state could tell what good photography was. Ms Barre had him removed from the room for creating and disturbance and being, in her words, ‘argumentative and too inquisitive.”
“I am sure there are many perverts out there with cameras who may not like the fact that we are checking up on them. If you know a photographer who is against this legislation, he or she is probably a child molester worried about losing access to the most vulnerable among us.” Miss Barre then had the Sheriffs there do a demonstration of the enforcement techniques that they had planned to use.
A 6’ male mannequin was rolled out on stage holding a Nikon D7000. “You can tell he is a predator just by looking at the way he is holding that camera,” Ms Barre explained.
At that point, five Arizona Sheriff’s deputies opened fire from a distance of about 10 feet. Firing nearly 130 rounds, the mannequin was hit 21 times with hollow tipped bullets that tore its predatory plastic ass a new one.
More when the smoke clears.