Hi! Vic Mortelmans wrote: > ... > 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. > ...
Vic, consider these points: 1. Some people (just like Feroze pointed out) don't like to be photographed regardless of their outlook at life. They just find themselves non-photogenic to the point of outright refusal to be photographed. I had a (Jewish) girlfriend who was just like that. My (Jewish) wife is almost like that. 2. There are very diverse and peculiar customs about being photographed. I can only speak for Judaism and people of Israel. Here are few examples: a. It is forbidden to be photographed on Saturday (Shabbat) and holidays. If I were to go to the place where many observing Jews crowd on the street and photograph them, that could really provoke some nasty reactions. On any other day it would be just fine. b. OTOH, I suspect that most of the Jewish population of the Old City of Jerusalem is aware of the fact that they are being photographed in some way by the tourists. The probably don't mind as long as it is not done openly and in the face. c. Some streams of Judaism believe that being photographed is a bad omen. So just walking the streets of city of Bnei Brak *without* a cap on your lens can provoke certain reactions. d. Otherwise, common population of Israel including those who observe Judaism probably won't mind at all being photographed, unless you stumble upon mafia boss or some secret installation even on the far background. I once photographed a flower, just a flower, which apparently grew on the fence of residence of a our President or something. I used film camera, so I couldn't actually prove that I did not intend anything beyond what I was claiming. So I had to give them my id and wait until they ran me through their computers. Generally I would probably side with what Feroze said and with principles that Godfrey outlined. Another thing is that if you were to try to engage that woman in a friendly discussion trying to see why she opposed to be photographed, you could have learned that it might have done nothing with her Faith. Finally, nowadays being able to show your pictures on the screen of your digital camera can do wonders. Just my cents. Boris -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
