Although I felt this most acutely at BGW that day, I have fallen into this trap so many times. I’ll bring a bunch of camera gear and have these grand plans in my head for all the amazing shots I’m going to get, stuff I’m going to be able to blow up and put on my wall. But time will go by and I’ll either leave my camera at the hotel or carry it with me and maybe get 15 total shots. Where is the disconnect between my hopes and dreams and reality? And why can’t I just get inspiration?

My Greatest Fear

Like most of you all, I’m my own worst critic. I have my internal expectations for how I want my photography sessions to go, for how I want the images to turn out and how much I want to get done. Those plans are perfect in my head but they’re impossible. And my brain subconsciously realizes that and to protect my ego and self conception, it shuts me down from even starting. After all, I only didn’t get these perfect images because I wasn’t trying! If I actually tried, I could 100% get it perfect, right?

That’s copium of the highest degree but a seductive one. And a drug that plagues me (and many others) across all creative endeavors. That software project that I want to do? Or that Youtube video I want to make? Well it won’t be perfect like it is in my head so I better shut down my brain from doing it to protect myself from the realization that I’m not perfect!

How I Try to Move Past It

Do you want to know the one secret that will almost certainly make you a better photographer and get those shots you’ve been dreaming of? Take pictures. Yep, that’s it, that’s the One Weird Trick. All kidding aside, there is no secret, there’s nothing about inspiration or productivity when it comes to photography that you don’t know but you need to know. The only thing that stands between you and getting better as a photographer is effort and putting in the work and trying.

There’s an old, probably apocryphal, story that goes something like this: a pottery teacher decides to run an experiment with their class and divides the class up into two groups. The groups will be graded on their pottery in different ways. One group can work all semester on making one pot and they will be graded solely on the quality of that pot. The other group, on the other hand, is not graded on quality at all, instead they’re graded on quantity. If you make 50+ different pots you get an A, 40 for a B and so on. The semester goes on and at the end of the semester the teacher is shocked to see that the quantity group’s best pots far exceed the quality group’s pots. The group that just showed up and put some effort in without seeking perfection were willing to experiment and try new things enough to learn and ironically, get closer to perfection than the group tasked with it.

The same is with us and photographers. Sometimes you’re so inspired you just can’t wait to get out there and shoot, other days you can’t. It doesn’t matter. If you want to get better, you need to just get started. Every single time I just get started I can’t stop and it gets easier.

My trick for myself is telling myself just to go get pictures of one ride (in the BGW example, Finnegan’s Flyer) and then I can stop shooting and sit on my phone or whatever. Inevitably I end up shooting more. My inspiration a lot of time isn’t organic, it’s manufactured and that’s the secret I attribute a lot of my growth towards as a photographer.

Bringing this back full circle to my fear, the important other thing to keep in mind is that for a while (still in my case) your expectations will far outstrip your abilities. You’ll look at your pictures and know what you were going for a not quite have gotten it. It can be frustrating, especially when you’re at a park thousands of miles away that you don’t visit every weekend. But have some self-compassion and forgiveness too. You’re not perfect and you’re learning and you’re getting better.

Since that fateful day at BGW where it all sunk in for me, I’ve procrastinated still, yes but I have been a lot more confident about how to dig myself out of it. And I have some of my favorite images ever to show for it. Give it a try yourself and let me know how it works for you!

I personally have experienced both of these: I’ve been told that I can’t take picutres with my Sony a6000 and also have brought my a7III with a reasonable size lens into the park and didn’t get hassled at all. To flesh out the story a little bit: I went to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in 2016 with my a6000 with only the stock lens. If any of you don’t know much about the camera, it’s Sony’s first mirrorless camera in the Alpha line, it sold really well and was/is very popular. I was standing in the plaza on the publicly accessible path, not even anywhere hidden, taking some shots of Joker as it flew down its first drop. After happily snapping away for a little bit, a security guard came up to me and told me “you’re not allowed to take pictures”. The subtext of this interaction was “with this camera” since there were people taking pictures on their cell phones around me and he didn’t say anything to them. I didn’t really say anything since I was so shocked being told this so I went inside the park and went to guest services where I was told that I was very much allowed to take pictures as long as I was on a publicly accessible path. So I went back out of the park and took my pictures that I wanted to take. The guard saw me again but this time didn’t say anything. It’s very weird contrasted with my positive experience where I was able to not only bring my DSLR but a telephoto lens and a tripod into SFOT and get some shots.

Since this is such a weird, inconsistent rule, I figured I’d do my research and see if I could get to the bottom of this and share it with you all!

The Official Written Statement

Since every park has its own policy page, each park has a slightly different policy when it comes to photography. Let’s grab a few of the most popular Six Flags parks.

Magic Mountain

Yep, that’s what I’m talking about. All interchangable lens cameras are banned as well as lenses longer than 3/4”. In addition, they mention a little further down that tripods and monopods are banned as well.

Great America

Okay, maybe Six Flags is a little consistent?

Great Adventure

Nope, this is the policy for Great Adventure, they don’t mention anything other than phones on the ride or drone mounted cameras (both of which are incredibly reasonable)

So now that we’ve taken a peek at what the official word is, let’s take a peek at what the unofficial (official-ish) policy is!

The Official Spoken Statement

So this portion comes from my conversation with a guest services employee at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. I mentioned that I’d been turned away from other the gate in the past and that I wanted to know what the official word is regarding photography. She gave a call somewhere and ended up telling me that this rule is more legalese than anything else and that as long as you don’t have a massive, obviously professional grade (even if you’re just a hobbyist) lens on your camera, you should be fine.

This answer was more frustrating than anything else to me since it seems to put the entire onus of enforcing the rules on the security staff, who aren’t exactly the most qualified to consistently enforce rules.

My IRL Experience

So now that we’ve talked about what the official word is, let’s talk about my experience with bringing my camera into the park. I started bringing my camera into the park in around 2013 when I started bringing my Nikon d3000 with kit lens and 70-300mm telephoto into Six Flags Over Texas. I never had anyone hassle me with that setup, even when I brought in a tripod a few times.

In 2017 and 2018, I branched out and started hitting more Six Flags parks with a new camera. This setup wa a lot smaller, with only a Sony a6000 with the kit lens. I never had any trouble bringing this into SFFT, SFGAm or SFMM even though it is technically against the rules, being an interchangable lens camera. The only park I ever had trouble with was Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, where I only got stopped once. Otherwise, I never had any trouble taking it into SFDK.

Update 2023 - This mostly remains true. I did get stopped and questioned by security at Great Adventure (funny enough). Once I explained how I just like to take pictures of coasters they let me go and I again confirmed with guest services that it was allowed. I got hassled by a security guard at Sea World San Antonio for my tripod. Once again I went to guest services who told me that I was allowed to use it.

My final kit over the past few years is my current one, a Sony a7III. I brought this to Frontier City (a Six Flags park) and didn’t get stopped even though it is unmistakably a professional grade camera.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, Six Flags is maddingly inconsistent with their policies with cameras. It seems like enforcement of the written rules is heavily dependent on the day and the security staff. In general though, it seems like you’re probably safe to bring your DSLR or mirrorless setup into the park as long as you leave your telephoto lens or any other bigger, professional looking lenses at home!

Have you had any experiences with camera policies at Six Flags parks? Let me know in the comment section below!

A little about me: so I am a hobbyist photographer that has taken photography seriously for about 10 years now. In the beginning I was just happy taking pictures with my Nikon d3000 but over time that morphed into caring about composition, learning about editing and finally where I’m at right now, with a small kit, trying to split my money between more lenses and more trips to take pictures. I’m currently based in the Bay Area so expect to see plenty from Great America and Discovery Kingdom.

As far as my ultimate photography goals, I want to get to the point where I can reliably head into an unknown park and be able to pretty easily see where the best spots are for pictures as well as come home with a good cache of pictures!

Feel free to introduce yourself in the comments below and I really look forward to getting to know everyone!