Security breach!

Since the day i have got my camera,i have faced a few hassles. With who? The TSA people(Transportation Security Administration oF America). Every trip when i pass my camera bag through the scanner at the airports,i get frisked to the side at least once and an inspection is done on my bag. With all the lenses,cables,cleaning kit,filters and the camera itself i believe they are right in doing so just to make sure I am not carrying something dangerous! :) But this blog write up is about what happened at the Philadelphia airport.

As usual I pass my camera bag through the scanner. The lady scanning the bag suddenly squints her eyes,moves the conveyor belt to and fro couple of times and gesticulates to a guy to have the bag checked. I sigh! Here we go again.

Very politely the security officer says 'Sir, can you please step aside, We have to check your bag'. I say 'Okay' and open the camera bag. He looks at all the equipment and i can sense the look of awe. He asks ' Are you a photographer'. I say ' No, I am not, I am an amateur and photography is one of my hobbies'. He -'You got some equipment for an amateur'. I just smile. He says - 'So what kind of photographs do you take'. I say ' Anything i like -but i mostly like nature and night photography'.

He says ' I also like photography'. He talks about what modes i take my snaps with,he looks at my Nikon D300 more closely. I show him a couple of snaps i took,He asks me where all i went,He asks me what kind of lenses i have. Then he smartly says -'Thank you sir,you are good to go'. I give him a big relieved smile and take off.

Its kind of nice to meet a security officer who is interested in photography.I wanted to ask him about his photography but refrained from doing so and just stuck to answering his questions.That's one TSA officer who was more than happy to go through the contents of my bag i guess!!