At 05:11 AM 8/15/2005, Malcolm Smith wrote:
I have to say I agreed with Frank and would have said much the same thing. I
think it's the wrong approach however, but I am sick and tired of taking
photographs (where I am after the buildings and not the people anyway) and
comments are made.
CAUTION: This is a long post. :)
I've not been in a situation involving photographing children, but there
have definitely been times when obnoxious people have tried to harass me
for taking photographs in public places.
One time I wanted a couple photos of a particular street sign, so I set up
my tripod across the street from the sign and started taking a few shots of
the sign. (I tried vertical and horizontal shots, a few different zoom
settings, maybe some exposure bracketing, etc.) After a minute or two, a
lady came running out of her nearby house demanding to know why I was
taking photos of her house! I tried to assure her that I wasn't even taking
photos of her house, and that it was actually out of view of the photos I
was taking of the street sign. I could tell that she didn't really believe
me. Apparently, she just couldn't imagine anyone wanting a picture of a
street sign. For what it's worth, I couldn't imagine wanting a picture of
her very plain and ordinary house! (Of course, I didn't dare say that to
her.) I had already gotten a few shots of the sign, so after I tried in
vain to reassure her of my intentions, I told her that I would be leaving
anyway. I didn't want the confrontation to escalate, and I could tell that
she didn't believe me about photographing the sign, and that she likely
wouldn't believe anything else I had to say. I'm not sure if I even
bothered mentioning the notion that it was perfectly legal to photograph
practically anything from a public sidewalk. She wouldn't have wanted the
lecture, and it would probably have just made her more emotional and
irrational.
One other time, I was taking photos of a free public event in a city park.
I was walking through the park with my camera, when a man yelled at me as I
got near him and a woman he was sitting on a park bench with. He was very
grumpy (and quite probably drunk). He very harshly told me that he didn't
want me to take pictures of him and the woman he was with. The woman also
made a harsh remark or two, confirming that she had the same position. I
had absolutely no intentions of taking any such pictures anyway. (Why would
I want a picture of two rather ugly, belligerent drunks?) I happened to
already be having a bad evening, and this belligerent, ignorant, drunken,
bully wasn't helping my mood at all. I told them that I had no intention of
photographing them anyway. Still, they persisted in being antagonistic and
speaking to me in a rude manner. I remember the man telling me what would
happen if I did take their picture. (I think he said he was going to smash
my camera and kick my ass, or something to that effect.) I couldn't resist
telling them at that point, that being in a public park, they had no
privacy to invade. If they didn't want anyone to see them together, or if
they couldn't afford to risk having their picture taken, they should have
stayed home! They cursed at me and threatened me as I walked away. In a
perfect world, these people should have been arrested for accosting,
harassing, and threatening me. All I did was walk past them on the park's
sidewalk, carrying my camera. I had never even pointed the camera in their
direction.
I once photographed a large open grassy field, at the top of a hill. It was
part of a local city park system. It was my intention to take a landscape
picture. I had a 20mm lens on my Nikon FM, to capture as much of the field
as possible. Then, I noticed that across this large field, well over 100
meters away, were two young women walking along the path that leads across
the field. They had only been very tiny unrecognizable dots in my
viewfinder. When they walked past me, one of them harshly demanded to know
why I was taking pictures of THEM. I tried to tell her that I was only
wanting pictures of the landscape, and that they had inadvertently walked
into the picture. She didn't seem to believe me. I explained that my very
wide lens wouldn't have shown them large enough to be recognized at that
distance anyway. I even offered for her to take a look through the
viewfinder, to see how ridiculously small anyone would have appeared at
over 100 meters, and that if I were actually wanting pictures of them, this
certainly wasn't the way to go about it. I was obviously wanting a picture
of the landscape, using such a wide angle lens. She declined the offer,
(probably afraid it would have proven her wrong, and she didn't want to
admit that she was wrong), but she was still antagonistic in her tone with
me. She demanded to know who I "worked for." (For example, was I a press
photographer?) I told her that I was taking pictures for myself. Then, she
demanded to know what I intended to do with them. <sigh> I told her that if
the pictures turned out interesting, they would be a part of my private
collection. If they didn't turn out well, they would go straight to the
trash. She kept on probing... I told her that if one of the images that
didn't include any people turned out exceptionally well, it might end up in
a photo contest, or perhaps on a web site I intended to build, to showcase
my photography. She asked me if I would be getting permission from people
before putting them on my web site, and I said I would. I also reminded her
that I only wanted the landscape photo that day, and I said I would be
taking more images of the field after they left. At this point, she
apparently had ran out of paranoid questions to annoy me with. Her tone was
still adversarial as she finally walked away with her friend.
I despise such people, but I really don't know if there is anything you can
do with them. I would be interested in hearing from anyone with good advice
about handling such situations, but I just don't think there is any way to
prevent such people from ruining your day. They often seem hell bent on
having their way, and are not into discussing what is right and wrong, or
legal or illegal. Without some sort of proof, the police probably won't be
of any help whatsoever. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the police
would ask the more reasonable photographer to leave, to soothe the "hurt
feelings" of the irrational, and possibly volatile paranoid people, thus
preventing a larger confrontation. <sigh>
What's a photographer to do? What are some good ways to handle the common
questions asked by such people, such as:
Why are you taking pictures?
Who are you working for? (This one always annoyed me. It's as if you have
to work for someone else, to be "legitimate" in their mind.)
Do you have a studio / where's your studio? (Once again, they are looking
for something that says you are "legitimate", based on their erroneous
preconceived notions of what a "real" photographer would be like. Never
mind the fact, that there are many respected professionals without a studio
of their own, and that a lack of a commercial studio actually means nothing.)
Do you have a business card? (Same as before, if you can't convince them
that you fit their preconceived notions of a commercial photographer, then
you have no credibility in their eyes. It sometimes makes me want to ask
them for their credentials to be a "professional onlooker", or a
"professional nosy pain in the ass", or whatever.)
What are you going to do with these pictures? (Whatever you tell them,
they never seem to actually trust the answer. Remember, if they thought
they could trust you, they wouldn't have been pestering you in the first
place.)
Hey, you don't have permission to photograph me (or my property)! (Even
though the photographer is definitely standing in a public place.)
I think we should actually form a list of similar questions and comments,
and take suggestions about how to best handle these common situations.
take care,
Glen
