I also have a “professional camera” and, like you, am pure amateur. I don’t even carry it with me most days. It’s funny that people never look at my bike or power tools and ask if I’m a professional cyclist or cabinet maker, but that’s always the first question when the SLR comes out. And it’s been like that for the 20+ years I’ve been using SLRs, even when I was using really cheap and banged up ones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Force_Central_Area

Before 9/11, it was festooned with all manner of identifiers: flags, HUGE sign, lettering on doors and windows, etc. You couldn’t miss it.

Now? Er, not so much. Nary a trace that the army is still there (and I believe they are). Now, it is in a very architecturally nice and interesting building to photograph, and I can understand the security aspect, with our troops in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s use of suicide bombers, etc. But if you don’t know the army is even there, what can they do? It is a dilemma, like you mention about the press release above.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10212406@N06/2057293803/in/set-72157603273008182/#/edit

As well, I don’t think enough people are informed how relatively inexpensive “professional” cameras (and lenses) are these days. I’m an amateur, full stop. I don’t make any money off my hobby, and don’t expect to. My 300mm lens was part of the deal (geeze, don’t they read the Best Buy flyers?). I’ve been hassled because of that lens STANDING BESIDE SOMEONE TAKING PICTURES WITH A CELL PHONE, who is standing beside someone with a point and shoot.

Geeze, just because I can’t disguise it…

As for whether the building is some kind of secret, that’s hard to believe when the City of Toronto issues a media advisory containing the building’s address and function, then asks the media—in the same release, no less—not to report on it. And they harass people just for taking pictures in the neighbourhood? Sheesh. Maybe they should remove the giant brass letters in the lobby that spell out—in even more detail—the building’s function. Nah, better just to keep people from taking pictures of it. Then no one will know where it is or what’s inside.

The problem I see is that some people seem to have lost the ability to filter information for themselves. Instead of evaluating other people’s actions in context, they simply consult a mental checklist of what they’ve been told are suspicious behaviours (“Taking pictures? Check. Professional camera? Check. Terrorist? Must be!”). Yay, we’re all suspects.

I also have a “professional” camera (Canon XTi). I took it to work one day, and was I was walking back into the building I’VE WORKED AT FOR OVER A DECADE, the security guard, who I’ve never seen actually get off his chair, leaped up with a rate of acceleration that would get him Olympic gold if this were a sport, and asked me where I was going. I flashed my security card and without a word, got in the elevator. Maybe its my earring…

I know what you mean about kids as well. Once my wife and friend of hers and I took her two children (4 and 7) to our local park (again, someplace I’ve been going to for almost a decade). Now, this was the first week with my new “professional” camera, but I wanted to get some “kids in action” shots: rolling down the hill, splashing water, etc. I wanted to try to get this darn shutter speed figured out…Harmless stuff, and I made VERY sure to only get the kids we had brought with us as much as possible. Pretty much every other adult in the park looked at me like I was wearing a raincoat on a sunny day.

The dumbest “you can’t do that” comment ever made to me: I was standing on my own front porch taking pictures of my own wind vane! I didn’t even notice the family on the sidewalk half a block down…