I finally had some time before the sun set on Thursday to walk around downtown Houston and snap some pictures. At the courthouse a guard chided me, said I am not allowed to take pictures (because it’s a federal building). What a sad state of affairs, I thought – if citizens cannot even take pictures of their own city’s or country’s courthouses and buildings. But then one of my colleagues pointed me to a 2010 New York Times article http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/you-can-photograph-that-federal-building/ that says the guard was wrong. As a general rule – a photographer can stand in a public place and take pictures of federal buildings.
