Hi, This forum has discussed legal objections to street photography many times. When I do street photograpy, it's not that often that I really take a frame on individual people, so I don't really bother about that. If people are in the picture, they're mostly unaware and part of a crowd or passing by at some distance. Moreover, I'm an amateur and don't publish photographs, so I don't see any problem in that area.
Today I was at a public street community fair (kind of garage sail) taking some pictures. Again: not framing individual people, but just catching the environment. Since we live in a multi-cultural city, I happened to frame a sale stand where a family of muslim people was looking around. One of the women directly signaled me that she opposed to have a picture taken. I know that this is forbidden by the islam religon. I have a dual feeling about this. On the one hand, I can fully understand people to oppose to being photographed, be it for religious reasons, privicy reason or economical reaons (if the pictures are commercialized), or whatever. That's the main reason why I'm not in to street photography with direct contact to the subject; I know the risk that the reaction is negative and having arguments or even a row would make me loose the pleasure of taking pictures. On the other hand, I feel uncomfertable that a couple of muslim people mingling in a crowd can prohibit me to take pictures. What if I would have been photographing my 2 year old son running around through the street and they happened to be in the background... Strictly spoken, that would have objected them as well, I guess. They're just part of a crowd. And I also have a third thought about this (but I hope I don't start a polemic discussion on this). I'm myself a practicing roman catholic, so I (think I) know what religion is about. Nevertheless, I can't imagine to interact with other people in my city community in this defensive (*) manner, based on my religious practice. But maybe I'm a bad catholic... Anyway, this is my (little) story... I'd like to hear some reaction to that! Maybe this forum numbers some muslim photographers? That would be really interesting! Groeten, Vic (*) note: I put the woman's reaction as being defensive, implying that I was the one to be offensive, starting to take the picture. That's just fair for the sake of the discussion. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
