Photography
Most of you will notice I don't tend to take many pictures of random people, urban scenes are usually devoid of people(except for friends and family). I tend to concentrate more on compostion and architecture. This is not because I don't want to, but mainly more because I am uncomfortable with and feel like I am invading privacy of others.
There was an interesting Blog in SMH this weekend by an SMH photographer lamenting the current state of street photography in Sydney, particularly for people and children photography. Abusive and agressive reaction from public and especially parents make the amateur photographer very wary.
Photography is no longer allowed on beaches. Because some cheeky bloke was taking mobile phone pics of topless sunbathers. Many seemingly public places in UK seem to enforce no photography policies. I have been constantly told not to use my camera. Part of this is obviously the size of my Camera, which does look professional, when using the large lens and lens hood.
Its a sad thing that the world is coming to this, where people fear the motives of others. And frustrating to me, just a guy enjoying a harmless hobby.
The few bad apples, have brought this about of course, paranoia and fear as well...its a huge shame.
Maybe I need a smaller camera? I notice people with small compacts dont seem to have the same issues... :D
......................
http://blogs.smh.com.au/photographers/archives/2007/02/photography_is_not_a_crime.html
Photography Is Not A Crime
In January, while on leave, I started photographing people who were climbing up the rocks at Wattamolla Beach, in the Royal National Park, and jumping off. I got four frames away over ten minutes or so, as I was keeping an eye on my son swimming nearby, and then I copped an earful. "Take a picture of my daughter and I'll rip ya f___ing head off." Here we go again I thought... I explained that I was just shooting people jumping off the cliff and that my lens included everything from that tree to that rock. "Yeah, and if you take a picture of my daughter I'll I'll rip ya f___ing head off."
Obviously she thought I was up to no good. I couldn't be bothered arguing. I muttered something under my breath and walked off. I was there with my wife and son, and friends from the UK. I wasn't in the mood for a fight. I didn't want to be part of a public scene at that time.
Later though, I started feeling angry about the assumptions she made and sad about the impact that they had on an activity that I enjoy and see as being valuable, both for myself, and culturally. I'm a photographer, both professionally and otherwise, and I didn't appreciate the uninformed opinion she had made of me nor the fact that she had so publically aired that opinion. The anger on her face was intense.
LEGAL: In Australia, in public, photography is legal (for now) and consent does not need to be obtained for those people being photographed. Even taking a picture over someone's fence is OK. Go on, try it... Do it every day though and it will become stalking...
Councils have tried to ban photography (unsuccessfully) and the Commonwealth government reviewed all aspects of 'unauthorised' photography in 2005 (discussion paper - 296Kb PDF). The Coffs Harbour Eisteddfod Society was so afraid of breaching child protection laws it banned parents from photographing the performances featuring their children. Whether it had the right to do so was never tested.
Basically though, if you are on public property, you can shoot it*. Public property and publicly accessible places are two different things. Train stations and beaches are public property, the QVB and Westfields aren't.
PRIVACY: "A person, in our society, does not have a right not to be photographed." So stated Justice John Dowd in a 2001 case (R v Sotheren) in the NSW Supreme Court. In Australia there is no right to privacy. If you don't want to be photographed sun-baking topless on a beach then don't sun-bake topless on a beach. Oops! You did it again? You got out of a car after forgetting to don some undies and now your genitals are all over the internet? That's your problem, or one of them at least.
Indeed, if you don't want to be photographed then you should think twice about leaving your home. If you go to a shopping centre, service station, train station, carpark, office block (your office block) then you are probably being photographed. Stuck in traffic? Your on RTA-cam. Have you ever asked yourself who controls the footage? What policies are in place regarding its use? Are the people who have access to it screened? How secure are the systems? It's easy to whip up fear around photography, but the worst is perpetrated by a very small minority.
The community-at-large's attitude to candid photography seems to have changed dramatically since I entered the industry some 14 years ago, and especially over the last few years. Our government would have you believe that cameras are dangerous as they feature heavily in the anti-terror "if you see something, say something" posters. Most of the fear and paranoia comes from the use of 'unauthorised' pics on dodgy kiddie-porn websites. This post isn't about how or why attitudes have changed. Suffice to say that this is a rallying cry. My camera can't undress you more than you already are, nor does it blow stuff up. It takes pictures. It keeps light.
GENDER:The situation is also undoubtedly more difficult for male photographers. SMH photographer Narelle Autio travelled for over a year around Australia recently with her partner Trent Parke and photographed extensively on and around beaches, documenting Australia's love-affair with the coast. She told me that she has never had a problem when photographing people, including kids, on beaches. The late Ingeborg Tyssen's advantage as a female might be the only thing that would make it possible for her to produce this series called Swimmers, shot in the early eighties, today.
SYDNEY: On my travels I've not had any problems photographing people in public areas. From India and Nepal to the UK, Greece and the US, it seems that Sydney-siders are the most paranoid about what a photographer may be doing. Sydney is a very aggressive city, with what seems a lot of un-vented anger that comes out occasionally, most often on the roads, but also in other ways at times (see Cronulla, Redfern, Mac Fields etc). Several of my colleagues at the SMH, including an American, share this view.
LIFE: Candid photography is one aspect of photography that has many advocates and followers around the world. Photographers interested in working this way see themselves as documenting life as it occurs, and by interfering as little as possible in the scene they help portray the state of affairs on planet earth in a particular place at a particular moment in time. There have been many wonderful candid photographers (street photographers - documentary photographers - call them what you will) and there are many working today.
Try and imagine the world of photography without Henri Cartier-Bresson's contribution. Or that of contemporaries like Alex Webb, Eugene Richards etc. Imagine not having Robert Frank's The Americans in your bookcase. When the 35mm camera freed them from their tripods, pioneering photographers realised the potential for capturing reality and for my mind we are all richer for it.
I don't have a one-size-fits-all solution for dealing with the harassment and interference that may be levelled at photographers. My colleagues employ a variety of methods . Brendan Esposito says he carries every bit of gear he can manage, to make himself look obviously like a professional or newspaper photographer. Peter Morris says he won't even try to take candid pictures on a beach anymore. He will always try to introduce himself to those who are prominent in the frame. I've introduced myself on occasions, though it almost certainly tends to ruin any candid spontaneity that might otherwise occur. On one occasion, even after introducing myself as from the SMH, I was still harassed by a non-related third party who took it upon himself to object to what I was doing (a story on the cleanliness of Sydney's harbour beaches.)
Just because photography is legal and there is no right to privacy doesn't provide carte blanch to photographers. There are defamation laws that apply to published images. The national classification system also applies to published works and any image used for commercial purposes requires a model consent for anyone recognisable in the image. Offensive behaviour laws may also apply, and this was what brought down Peter Mackenzie, 25 of Coogee, who was photographing topless women on the beach with a camera-phone.
RESOURCES: A good overview of the rights and restrictions has been written, in plain english, by Blue Mountains based photographer and programmer Andrew Nemeth and can be found here. Nemeth, in conjunction with Koyla Miller has produced a PDF of photographers rights in NSW. It's written from the perspective of someone being photographed. If you shoot on the street it would be a good idea to print it and carry it around. Also, the Australasian Legal Information Institute has this page on privacy in photographic images. Here's a response from the Arts Law Centre of Australia to the Attorney General's Discussion Paper, which looks at it from an arts perspective, and includes the wonderful quote from Diane Arbus that "I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them."
So if you see someone photographing on the street, or in the park, or near a beach, why not watch them a while? Are they a tourist or a street photographer (is their camera silver or black? - a dead giveaway) See if you can determine what they seem to be interested in. Is it someone's bum? Or one of life's delightful little tableaus?
Is someone photographing your dog? It's probably just Marco Bok (or Elliot Erwitt). If you like to leap tall buildings in a single bound maybe James Brickwood has already got you. Are you coming down from Mardi Gras at an 'unofficial' laneway recovery party? Then you probably can't swing your handbag without hitting a photographer or three. I like to occasionally shoot bins, not because I want to put bombs in them but because I like the way they look.
Hmmm.. bins. A pre-September 11 scene from Drummoyne. Remember bins in public?
A relatively small group of people are out there using photography to amass collections of semi-clad kiddie-pix to be made available on the dark back-waters of the internet. They're not photographers, but they use cameras. They don't care about the image, only the subject. Thousands or millions more, real photographers, are out there around the world poking their lenses into life's goings-on, without asking the permission of everybody involved, and generally doing no harm.
Jon Reid
*There are some cavaets, though a thorough reading of the resources mentioned and linked-to here should have you well-enough informed.
Posted by Jon Reid
February 13, 2007 6:12 PM
There was an interesting Blog in SMH this weekend by an SMH photographer lamenting the current state of street photography in Sydney, particularly for people and children photography. Abusive and agressive reaction from public and especially parents make the amateur photographer very wary.
Photography is no longer allowed on beaches. Because some cheeky bloke was taking mobile phone pics of topless sunbathers. Many seemingly public places in UK seem to enforce no photography policies. I have been constantly told not to use my camera. Part of this is obviously the size of my Camera, which does look professional, when using the large lens and lens hood.
Its a sad thing that the world is coming to this, where people fear the motives of others. And frustrating to me, just a guy enjoying a harmless hobby.
The few bad apples, have brought this about of course, paranoia and fear as well...its a huge shame.
Maybe I need a smaller camera? I notice people with small compacts dont seem to have the same issues... :D
......................
http://blogs.smh.com.au/photographers/archives/2007/02/photography_is_not_a_crime.html
Photography Is Not A Crime
In January, while on leave, I started photographing people who were climbing up the rocks at Wattamolla Beach, in the Royal National Park, and jumping off. I got four frames away over ten minutes or so, as I was keeping an eye on my son swimming nearby, and then I copped an earful. "Take a picture of my daughter and I'll rip ya f___ing head off." Here we go again I thought... I explained that I was just shooting people jumping off the cliff and that my lens included everything from that tree to that rock. "Yeah, and if you take a picture of my daughter I'll I'll rip ya f___ing head off."
Obviously she thought I was up to no good. I couldn't be bothered arguing. I muttered something under my breath and walked off. I was there with my wife and son, and friends from the UK. I wasn't in the mood for a fight. I didn't want to be part of a public scene at that time.
Later though, I started feeling angry about the assumptions she made and sad about the impact that they had on an activity that I enjoy and see as being valuable, both for myself, and culturally. I'm a photographer, both professionally and otherwise, and I didn't appreciate the uninformed opinion she had made of me nor the fact that she had so publically aired that opinion. The anger on her face was intense.
LEGAL: In Australia, in public, photography is legal (for now) and consent does not need to be obtained for those people being photographed. Even taking a picture over someone's fence is OK. Go on, try it... Do it every day though and it will become stalking...
Councils have tried to ban photography (unsuccessfully) and the Commonwealth government reviewed all aspects of 'unauthorised' photography in 2005 (discussion paper - 296Kb PDF). The Coffs Harbour Eisteddfod Society was so afraid of breaching child protection laws it banned parents from photographing the performances featuring their children. Whether it had the right to do so was never tested.
Basically though, if you are on public property, you can shoot it*. Public property and publicly accessible places are two different things. Train stations and beaches are public property, the QVB and Westfields aren't.
PRIVACY: "A person, in our society, does not have a right not to be photographed." So stated Justice John Dowd in a 2001 case (R v Sotheren) in the NSW Supreme Court. In Australia there is no right to privacy. If you don't want to be photographed sun-baking topless on a beach then don't sun-bake topless on a beach. Oops! You did it again? You got out of a car after forgetting to don some undies and now your genitals are all over the internet? That's your problem, or one of them at least.
Indeed, if you don't want to be photographed then you should think twice about leaving your home. If you go to a shopping centre, service station, train station, carpark, office block (your office block) then you are probably being photographed. Stuck in traffic? Your on RTA-cam. Have you ever asked yourself who controls the footage? What policies are in place regarding its use? Are the people who have access to it screened? How secure are the systems? It's easy to whip up fear around photography, but the worst is perpetrated by a very small minority.
The community-at-large's attitude to candid photography seems to have changed dramatically since I entered the industry some 14 years ago, and especially over the last few years. Our government would have you believe that cameras are dangerous as they feature heavily in the anti-terror "if you see something, say something" posters. Most of the fear and paranoia comes from the use of 'unauthorised' pics on dodgy kiddie-porn websites. This post isn't about how or why attitudes have changed. Suffice to say that this is a rallying cry. My camera can't undress you more than you already are, nor does it blow stuff up. It takes pictures. It keeps light.
GENDER:The situation is also undoubtedly more difficult for male photographers. SMH photographer Narelle Autio travelled for over a year around Australia recently with her partner Trent Parke and photographed extensively on and around beaches, documenting Australia's love-affair with the coast. She told me that she has never had a problem when photographing people, including kids, on beaches. The late Ingeborg Tyssen's advantage as a female might be the only thing that would make it possible for her to produce this series called Swimmers, shot in the early eighties, today.
SYDNEY: On my travels I've not had any problems photographing people in public areas. From India and Nepal to the UK, Greece and the US, it seems that Sydney-siders are the most paranoid about what a photographer may be doing. Sydney is a very aggressive city, with what seems a lot of un-vented anger that comes out occasionally, most often on the roads, but also in other ways at times (see Cronulla, Redfern, Mac Fields etc). Several of my colleagues at the SMH, including an American, share this view.
LIFE: Candid photography is one aspect of photography that has many advocates and followers around the world. Photographers interested in working this way see themselves as documenting life as it occurs, and by interfering as little as possible in the scene they help portray the state of affairs on planet earth in a particular place at a particular moment in time. There have been many wonderful candid photographers (street photographers - documentary photographers - call them what you will) and there are many working today.
Try and imagine the world of photography without Henri Cartier-Bresson's contribution. Or that of contemporaries like Alex Webb, Eugene Richards etc. Imagine not having Robert Frank's The Americans in your bookcase. When the 35mm camera freed them from their tripods, pioneering photographers realised the potential for capturing reality and for my mind we are all richer for it.
I don't have a one-size-fits-all solution for dealing with the harassment and interference that may be levelled at photographers. My colleagues employ a variety of methods . Brendan Esposito says he carries every bit of gear he can manage, to make himself look obviously like a professional or newspaper photographer. Peter Morris says he won't even try to take candid pictures on a beach anymore. He will always try to introduce himself to those who are prominent in the frame. I've introduced myself on occasions, though it almost certainly tends to ruin any candid spontaneity that might otherwise occur. On one occasion, even after introducing myself as from the SMH, I was still harassed by a non-related third party who took it upon himself to object to what I was doing (a story on the cleanliness of Sydney's harbour beaches.)
Just because photography is legal and there is no right to privacy doesn't provide carte blanch to photographers. There are defamation laws that apply to published images. The national classification system also applies to published works and any image used for commercial purposes requires a model consent for anyone recognisable in the image. Offensive behaviour laws may also apply, and this was what brought down Peter Mackenzie, 25 of Coogee, who was photographing topless women on the beach with a camera-phone.
RESOURCES: A good overview of the rights and restrictions has been written, in plain english, by Blue Mountains based photographer and programmer Andrew Nemeth and can be found here. Nemeth, in conjunction with Koyla Miller has produced a PDF of photographers rights in NSW. It's written from the perspective of someone being photographed. If you shoot on the street it would be a good idea to print it and carry it around. Also, the Australasian Legal Information Institute has this page on privacy in photographic images. Here's a response from the Arts Law Centre of Australia to the Attorney General's Discussion Paper, which looks at it from an arts perspective, and includes the wonderful quote from Diane Arbus that "I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them."
So if you see someone photographing on the street, or in the park, or near a beach, why not watch them a while? Are they a tourist or a street photographer (is their camera silver or black? - a dead giveaway) See if you can determine what they seem to be interested in. Is it someone's bum? Or one of life's delightful little tableaus?
Is someone photographing your dog? It's probably just Marco Bok (or Elliot Erwitt). If you like to leap tall buildings in a single bound maybe James Brickwood has already got you. Are you coming down from Mardi Gras at an 'unofficial' laneway recovery party? Then you probably can't swing your handbag without hitting a photographer or three. I like to occasionally shoot bins, not because I want to put bombs in them but because I like the way they look.
Hmmm.. bins. A pre-September 11 scene from Drummoyne. Remember bins in public?
A relatively small group of people are out there using photography to amass collections of semi-clad kiddie-pix to be made available on the dark back-waters of the internet. They're not photographers, but they use cameras. They don't care about the image, only the subject. Thousands or millions more, real photographers, are out there around the world poking their lenses into life's goings-on, without asking the permission of everybody involved, and generally doing no harm.
Jon Reid
*There are some cavaets, though a thorough reading of the resources mentioned and linked-to here should have you well-enough informed.
Posted by Jon Reid
February 13, 2007 6:12 PM
posted by j a s o n at 1:08 pm
1 Comments:
Yeah spot on, such a shame because action shots of people just going about their life are often very fascinating. I remember once taking a photo of a little girl playing in the dirt in a refugee camp in Pakistan. After I took the photo I noticed a man who looked like her father glaring at me and I realised I might've caused offence. I quickly but with a big smile walked up to him, took a photo of him and showed it to him. He smiled and we talked a little bit. The difference perhaps is that over in Pakistan kids get kidnpped by gangsters all the time.
Have you considered investing in a 'National Geographic' vest? Also I wonder whether in some countries people would be less sensitive, eg the US?
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