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U.S. Forest Service May Require Photographers to Purchase $1,500 Permits

Chris Gampat
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09/25/2014
2 Mins read

Last Updated on 09/25/2014 by Chris Gampat

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Looking to taking pictures on federal wild lands? You may need to get a permit soon. In fact, according to the Washington Post, the U.S. Forest Service is saying that photographers (even those with just cell phones) want to photograph the lands that they need to purchase a $1,500 permit. This goes for both filming and still photography. There initially were problems with drones–which we totally understand. But this seems a bit ludicrous.

The measure comes specifically from the Proposed Directive for Commercial Filming in Wilderness; Special Uses Administration.  The summary of which states:

“The Forest Service proposes to incorporate interim directive (ID) 2709.11-2013.1 into Forest Service Handbook (FSH) 2709.11, chapter 40 to make permanent guidance for the evaluation of proposals for still photography and commercial filming on National Forest System Lands. The proposed amendment would address the establishment of consistent national criteria to evaluate requests for special use permits on National Forest System (NFS) lands. Specifically, this policy provides the criteria used to evaluate request for special use permits related to still photography and commercial filming in congressionally designated wilderness areas. Public comment is invited and will be considered in the development of the final directive.”

At that same page, the Feds are also accepting comments from the public; but they must be received by November 3rd.

Getting permits for filming isn’t usually terribly hard to do and when you do this, you often need to describe exactly what you’re doing, how much space you’ll be taking up, etc. But from what this seems like, a $1,500 permit may allow you to photograph all across the designated forest area. If it indeed isn’t that, then it seems preposterous.

1 500 permit photographers U.S. Forest Service wild lands
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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