Branson - no photos, please

We went to Branson, Mo., this year for a late anniversary trip. It was quite enjoyable vacation, but it was hard on a photographer. Almost everywhere we went, they had posted "No Cameras." I've been at places before where they have restricted professional cameras, like WWF events, but most of the city seemed to have a problem with cameras.

We went to a couple shows and the camera clause is not unexpected, so people have to come pay to see what the big deal is. We ended up going to the Branson Landing, a very large strip mall. Somewhere in there, there was a multimillion dollar light and water display that plays each hour, and then every thirty minutes at the end of the night. We saw the very end during the day, and decided to return that night, but the there was something wrong with it. We tried again the next night and saw a fire/water/light show synced to music shown in the photos you see here.

Even this was a problematic place for photos though. Between shows, I tried get an interesting shot of the mall at night. It was closed, so I tried to get a decent "street scene" shooting through the middle of the shopping center. As I was shooting, a guy on a golf cart rolled up and told me I could take all the photos I wanted, but I could not reproduce any because everything is copyrighted. For everyone's information though, anything that can be seen from a public place can be photographed and reproduced. The courts had a little sense with cases like this - If anyone can freely walk around and see something, why must you hide photos of that something?