----- Original Message ----- From: "Rebekah" Subject: A Gray Matter
> Yesterday, I drove by the site of the Charleston Sofa Super Store > fire, which you can read up on here: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston_Sofa_Super_Store_fire > > My husband and I lost two friends in that fire, and it was a shock to > see it still standing. I never drove over there because I didn't want > to see it, and I figured it would have been torn down by now. For > some reason, it's still standing, and I've decided I'd like to shoot > some pictures of this in black and white, but I'm unsure of the > legality and political correctness of doing so. In order to be on the > right side of the law and not offend the families of the men who > perished, who or which government whatnot should I ask for permission? > And, if you had the opportunity to shoot this or something like it, > would you? My understanding of the way things work in your country, admidedly gathered from reading this forum, is that as long as you are standing on public property, you can photograph pretty much whatever you want, and if you want to photograph something from private property, you need to secure the landowners permission to be on his/her property. So, legally, you would be OK, as long as you are on a public sidewalk while shooting, though sometimes security goons have been known to overstep their mandate and tell people they can't photograph things that they are within their rights to photograph. If you feel the need to step onto private property, such as that owned by Charlston Sofa, I expect the most that would happen is that you might be asked to leave by the owner or his agent, which you would be bound to do, to the extent that you would have to at least retreat to the sidewalk. As for the political correctness of the photography, what's the big deal? It's a burnt out building, no more than that. If there were a concern about the fact people died in it (and I am sorry for your loss), then you would want to be careful about photographing any residential building, as people sometimes die in their sleep. On the other hand, only you can decide if photographing the thing is appropriate form a personal standpoint. What should concern you more than your wanting to photograph the thing, which is your business, and no one elses, is the parania you are displaying regarding securing permissions, and whether you need the government's authorization to photograph the thing. This doesn't sound like questions that a free citizen living in an democratic country should feel the need to ask. William Robb -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
