Photographer Faces Resistance While Taking Photographs Near Oil Refinery
Tom Atwood, a photographer and professor of broadcast journalism at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, went about taking photographs of models for a project he described as a series of “industrial landscape portraits” near the Phillips 66 Wood River Refinery in Roxana, Illinois. His shoot put him up against resistance and alleged serious threats. As a former television reporter, Tom is very familiar with what and where he is allowed to photograph. He soon discovered that his project was taken very seriously. I talked with the refinery’s spokeswoman, the Roxanna police chief, and the photographer himself to get a better picture of what happened.
Tom has always been interested in the Wood River refinery. He has been photographing it for years, but explained to me that he wanted to start using it as a backdrop for portraits he wanted to take of models.
“I liked the idea of the contrast between the beauty of the models and the industrial landscape.”
So he went about his first shoot, found a large empty parking lot near the refinery, and began his project a year ago last May. Within minutes he was stopped by a local police officer and informed that the parking lot was private property owned by the refinery and that he couldn’t shoot there.
“[The officer] was extremely polite about it – almost embarrassed to have been called out once he saw what we were up to.”
He made sure to stress that the majority of his encounters or discussions with law enforcement were always very friendly and professional. Roxana police chief Will Cunningham explained that the police department is required to investigate all reports of suspicious behavior.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that a crime is being committed, but we still have to go check it out.”
The Roxana police department responded to a call from the security office at the refinery to which Wood River Refinery spokeswoman Michelle Erker clarified simply.
“The refinery security is to report any suspicious activity to a list of authorities as outlined in the Maritime Transportation Security Act.”
Tom didn't understand why taking photographs of pretty women was deemed "suspicious activity," but he moved to different locations discovering through subsequent visits from police and security that the refinery owned most of the land surrounding it. This made his project very difficult to continue, but he still searched for vistas that could work.
During our conversation, Michelle pointed me to one of Tom’s photos where he had a model holding on to a chain-link fence underneath a “No Trespassing” sign. She jokingly told me that she felt like he knew what he was doing a lot of the time he was out there shooting. Tom admitted to me that he walked some fine lines at times to get the images he was after, but that he would never intentionally trespass to get a shot.
“The fence was the border. I wouldn’t climb over, but I took photos as close as I could get.”
The end came in October. Tom was approached by both a security guard and a police officer while working with two models in the middle of an empty street that runs perpendicular to the refinery. He claims the security guard from the refinery threatened to have him arrested for trespassing and that he also threatened to put Tom’s name on the homeland security list.
“I was scared. I didn’t know what that meant and I didn’t want to be on a list like that.”
Tom was eventually able to talk with a supervisor and show the photos he had taken, proving that he hadn’t done anything wrong, but things had gone too far this time. Tom felt bullied. He felt harassed. Instead of pushing the issue any further, he decided to just pack things up for the sake of his models and head home. Frustrated and worried, Tom decided to stop his project completely.
“It just didn’t seem worth it. It seemed crazy – a person shooting portraits around a refinery to be threatened to be put on a terrorist list.”
Outraged, his brother shared what had happened through Facebook and Tom’s story began to go viral. There was talk of emails being sent to the refinery and of other photographers organizing shoots there in protest of what Tom had gone through. The uproar culminated in less than a week when he sat down at Melissa Erker's office to discuss a resolution. In their meeting, she proposed establishing places around the refinery property where he could shoot with the stipulation that he gave advance notice. One of those locations Tom chuckled about was the very parking lot where his project began. Michelle insists that they aren’t looking to encourage other photographers to come out, but that she understood Tom's project and wanted to come to a compromise. Tom used to cover refinery stories for KSDK Channel 5 in St. Louis, so perhaps the fact that they have known each other over the years has helped them build this bridge together. Michelle was very forthright in clarifying that the refinery's security guards have no authority to arrest nor to confiscate. She responded to Tom’s claim that a security guard threatened to put him on the homeland security list as well.
“[…] this is not verified by our team. Our team fully understands their authority and works to contact the local authorities per the MTSA.”
Looking back on it all, he has some simple advice for photographers who want easygoing photo shoots.
“Stay clear of refineries and industrial areas because the headache of going up against giants like this isn’t fun.”
However, Tom was insistent that photographers understand their first amendment rights as well — specifically that they have the right to take photographs while on public property. When I asked him why he didn’t just contact the refinery before he started his project to avoid all this trouble, Tom explained that it was never his intention to step foot on the refinery’s property, and he made it clear to me that he doesn’t advocate blatant trespassing. He attributes all this hassle as an overreaction to what happened on 9/11.
So, What can we take away from Tom Atwood’s story? Well, I’m glad to hear that he felt the local police handled everything overall like true professionals. A lot of photography stories that involve police go in a completely different direction. I am troubled by the possibility that an overzealous security guard could have threatened and bullied Tom, as he claims, but I also think that preparation and communication of intent are integral when planning a project like his. In the end, I believe that this experience has given all parties involved much to to think about and learn from.
Tom surprised me with this final thought.
“Some people don’t like the refinery for various reasons, but I’ve always thought it was beautiful. Something went overboard here, but I still love the refinery.”
“The Refinery Project” exhibit runs from July 18 through Aug. 22 at the Edwardsville Arts Center. You can see more of Tom's work at his website. All images were used with permission.
Edwardsville photographer's art project puts him at odds with Wood River Refinery, police
Paul Hampel, St. Louis Post Dispatch
ROXANA • Documentary filmmaker and educator Tom Atwood, a former television reporter, set out to photograph the industrial grandeur of the Wood River refinery over time.
What he got were tense encounters with the owners and police, who he said have treated him like a potential terrorist.
And some interesting pictures anyway.
Atwood, 57, of Edwardsville, is in the final stages of “The Refinery Project,” a year- long effort that is scheduled to be on display July 18 through Aug. 22 at the Edwardsville Arts Center, 6165 Center Grove Road.
Atwood said the project had challenged his assumptions about freedom, authority and the rights of the public on public property. The massive oil refinery, owned by Phillips 66, and nearby police departments have defended their actions, citing what they call national security concerns.
Atwood is a professor of broadcast journalism at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville who has been married 33 years and has two grown children.
He traces his fascination with the refinery to a comment made 20 years ago by his now-grown son, Riley.
“I remember the first time that I drove past the refinery with my family and being shocked that an industrial plant of such magnitude was so close to suburban communities,” Atwood said.
Then Riley piped up from the back seat.
“Dad,” he said, “We’re really lucky to live here, aren’t we?”
“He loved it,” Atwood recalled. “But then again, he also liked junkyards.”
Riley’s fascination with the plant proved infectious.
Atwood found himself drawn to it, particularly on winter nights, when the plant’s lights sparkled through a haze of steam in the frigid air.
Taking photographs of the refinery grew out of a hobby, later a side job, as a portrait photographer that Atwood took up after he went back to school in 2006. He had enrolled at SIUE seeking a master’s degree in mass communications. It was part of an effort to reinvent himself as a teacher after jobs that included stints as Metro East bureau chief for KSDK (Channel 5) and as a filmmaker for an educational think-tank in Tennessee.
Many of Atwood’s pictures feature attractive women, often showing a fair amount of skin, set against the refinery’s imposing backdrop of soot-stained stacks, steam clouds and twinkling lights.
Atwood calls his pictures “an art effort.” If he has achieved art, it was not with the cooperation of the refinery and the police who patrol its boundaries.
Atwood said that he had been stopped and questioned — illegally, he asserts — about half a dozen times by refinery security guards and police officers, particularly those from Roxana and South Roxana.
His first shoot, in May, was typical of scenes that would play out over the course of the project at the complex, which sits in Roxana just north of the boundary with South Roxana.
“I was setting up for a shoot on a long, gravel parking lot along Madison Street in South Roxana,” Atwood said. “There was no sign on the lot; it looked like a public parking area.”
Within minutes, a police car pulled up.
“The officer told me, ‘You can’t do that here,’” Atwood said.
It turned out that the parking lot was private property, owned by the refinery.
Atwood would come to learn that the refinery owns just about all the property that abuts the behemoth plant that is not a city street or sidewalk.
Atwood said he was careful from then on to shoot only from public streets and sidewalks.
But the confrontations continued.
At one point, he said, a South Roxana officer told him that the refinery had the power under the Patriot Act to confiscate his camera. He said other officers had threatened to arrest him in the name of special Homeland Security laws, and that plant guards, citing the terrorist attacks of 9/11, have threatened to have his name placed on a national list as a security risk.
He once received a phone call at home from police warning him about taking photographs.
The incidents raised Atwood’s First Amendment hackles.
“As a reporter, my first commandment was freedom of speech; I felt I had the legal right to take pictures from public property so long as I was not interfering with traffic or raising a safety issue,” Atwood said. “And considering that photographs from almost every angle of that refinery — including from above — could already be found on Google Earth, the whole security threat warning was ridiculous.”
He said the matter struck him as an effort by the refinery to wield utter control of the entire area, even those places that were public property. He said police departments had been too quick to take the plant’s side. The villages and the cities around the plant rely heavily on the refinery for taxes and jobs.
Refinery spokeswoman Melissa Erker said Atwood’s project qualified as “suspicious activity” under the Maritime Transportation Security Act.
“Under this act, we are required to report any suspicious activities, which includes Atwood taking pictures of the facility,” Erker said this week. “Unfortunately, post 9/11, that’s the way we have to act in this world.”
Roxana’s police chief, Will Cunningham, said his department had responded to calls from the refinery to check out Atwood’s activities.
He said the police had not shown special preference to the plant in responding to its calls.
“If it’s worthy enough for someone to call police, it’s worthy to check out,” Cunningham said.
“What about a guy walking down the street in Boston wearing a backpack today? You think he’d be more likely to be contacted this year versus last year?” Cunningham said, alluding to last year’s Boston Marathon bombing.
Bob Coles, the new chief of the South Roxana Police Department, said he respected Atwood’s rights as a citizen, even if he did not appreciate his art.
“I’ve seen some of his pictures of half-naked, scantily clad women; not sure I’d call it art, but to each his own,” Coles said.
Still, Coles said, Atwood can be in the wrong even when shooting from a public place.
“It is absolutely illegal for him to stand on a street and take pictures,” Coles said. “What if someone turned off Madison Street and didn’t see him or his models?”
A national expert on the First Amendment said recently that Atwood had the law on his side.
Mickey Osterreicher, a lawyer, has represented scores of journalists and others on public photography rights and other issues. He said Atwood’s was a common complaint.
“Basically, the law says that if you can see it standing in a public place, you can photograph it,” Osterreicher said. “Nonetheless, many times I have dealt with this very issue in Washington, where security guards and police are telling people they can’t take a picture of this or that building.”
Osterreicher noted, however, that the First Amendment was “not absolute.”
“It’s subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions. If someone’s in the middle of the street, blocking oncoming traffic, an officer has a right to ask them to move to the sidewalk.”
Other than that, the public’s right is clear, he said.
“Fortunately, the federal government has issued very specific guidelines noting that police and guards can’t forbid people on public property from taking a photograph,” Osterreicher said.
Atwood said there was a marked change in his dynamic with the refinery after his brother, Bill Atwood, posted a complaint about the plant’s actions on his Facebook page.
Bill Atwood is executive director of the Illinois State Board of Investment. His post led scores of photographers, free-speech supporters and others to besiege the refinery with complaints.
Tom Atwood and the refinery recently reached a tenuous accord: The plant will not call in guards or police if Atwood notifies it ahead of any shoot to divulge when and where he would take pictures.
Atwood said he agreed for the sake of finishing the project and protecting the models. But he said the agreement did not sit well with him.
“There were times when I told myself that I should just man up and force them to arrest me. I stood down because my models did not deserve to be drawn into that kind of drama,” he said.
“But that doesn’t mean I like it.”