Photographer Rights. Please watch now!

Please Green Light this piece and get it on the television. I have nothing to do with it but feel strongly about it and I’m regular at Current, as we all should be. It’s a great place online with some excellent work.

Wow. Frightening, both socially and personally (since I’m beginning to take my camera with me everywhere and do more amateur PJ stuff).

On a positive note, I was just in San Franciso and went down to the torch route to get some images. I was surprised by the number of Pro (Canon 1dS) and pro-sumer (Canon 30/40D and Nikon D60/80) being wielded by amateurs in the crowd. I mean lots of them. The other thing was that the police (at least the ones I approached) were very accomodating, a couple times they actually let me out into areas where they were holding people back so I could get a shot.

Bump!

Well its changing every where even in small rural towns and backroads where we spend time documenting deserted farms.
Every trip now I have some farmer blazing up in his truck at 60 mph and throwing it sideways in front of our vehicle to demand what we are doing.
I always be respectable and explain our interests and that we in fact respect thier hardships but I was getting tired of explaining it and I don’t want to spend the next hour talking about my big camera.

The last time it happened I said ’ look I have to ask you what is the deal as this is happening non stop’ His reply was that deserted farms and active farms have become targets for thieves and like us the insurance claims are frustrating and expensive so they are patrolling thier farms out of need and he was sorry he was so demanding and in my face.

My point is that times have changed and people are scared however because we are respectable people with a good purpose we can do a lot to re-educate people as well, there is no good done by getting back in thier face and making them get a hate on for photographers.

Its just something else we have to adapt too and like business changes in recent years we have to adapt ourselves as well.

Take Care, Pete

Frightning!!

Ruediger

Most ‘officials’ assume the their intended quarry knows less than they do about the law. So it’s important to get savvy about what are the means to deflect these situations before they get out of hand ie. know the law in relation to what you are doing. In Britain the same issue has raised it’s head and Amateur Photographer Magazine is one of the high profile media outlets leading the charge on this nonsense. In Ireland most pro’s cite ‘the constitutional right to earn a living,’ when we get this crap thrown at us and it’s usually enough to sort it. There are places in every country around the globe which are off limits to photographers without permission, so it is a good thing to find out what and where you can shoot before you do it. And remember if you are forced to delete your card, you can always retrieve the images later.

In general, anybody who throws this shit my way is labeled ‘asshole.’ It’s always good to drop a frame on somebody like this as they approach, civilian or otherwise. It’s a laugh to see a self appointed ‘have a go hero’ ducking and diving when you stick the camera in their direction. My last encounter with officialdom was two days ago, a police sergeant approached myself and a colleague whilst sitting in his car, he addressed me only by my first name and politely asked me to move my car off a footpath – it was parked around the corner opposite a gig we were shooting at. At all times he was generous to a fault, I was taking the piss with my parking. But still and all he knew who the driver of the car was and what he looked like. My point being, if you ever have an encounter with the police – arrested or not, you can be damn sure a note is taken of it. Information can become knowledge and small details can be very important in police work, that’s the nature of their business. One day you could be that small detail. Because of the nature of my work, I tend to cross paths with the police regularly, and in some ways that works in my favour…

Regardless of the demeanour of the police officer, be polite and friendly, mention that you are on public property and ask them under what law or by-law they wish to stop you under. Try to note names or numbers if thing aren’t going your way.

rebump

frightening yeah… for sure… if I was a terrorist or some badguy would I really flash a huge dslr or vidcam on the street and take pictures? don’t think so. rather go for a tiny small inconspicuous point’n’shoot… glad we haven’t gotten there yet in Norway, in NZ I have not had any bad experiences regarding this yet, but I’m sure it’s just a question of time…

here’s the photographers rights:

australia:
http://4020.net/words/photorights.php

uk:
http://www.sirimo.co.uk/media/UKPhotographersRights.pdf

usa:
http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm

print it and put in your bag. guess this should be just as important now as extra batteries and cf’s.