Photographer's Rights

[CNelson]

This is an interesting recurring thread...it will come back again. In the USA with a few exceptions we can shoot anything we can see in or from a public place. Some public places may restrict tripods (for safety reasons) or photos of art works or use of flash (to protect art or prevent distractions) but but most of the time you can shoot what or who you want from a public place. That, however doesn't mean you can publish what you shoot in a public place. If you shoot a private property or person and publish the shot without proper permissions, you may be civily liable (as distinguised from criminally liable). I can shoot your house from a public place but the person who places the image in a magazine, newspaper, pamphlet, etc may have liability. The rules are complex and ensure lawyer full-employment. So, if I shoot your house and put the picture in the newspaper, especially in an advertisement I could be liable...however, if you are murdered in your house and I photograph it as a photojournalist covering a crime scene, the image can be published in lot of places without liability.

There's a high end town in Florida where I'm told it's illegal to take pictures or to even carry a camera in public...the story I was told is that the town is full of wealthy celebrity types and they don't want "tourists" taking pictures. I don't know if this story is true but I suspect that if it is true and you were arrested you might have it overturned as unconstitutional in the Supreme Court.....if you had enough money to get that far. The problem is you would be trying to out-spend millionaires. Not worth testing the law at my fiscal level.

If you are photographing public transit facilities or potential terrorist targets and a police officer sees your actions as suspicious (for reasons he/she can reasonably articulate in court) he/she may talk to you to find out what you are doing. This is a reasonable course of action in this day and age. Some officers may go beyond their authority in these circumstances but good judgement and a good attitude will go a long way to keep the situation mellow....and that applies to the police officer as well. If the officer is out of line, you can always call the police department and ask to speak to a supervisor. In fact, if the officer is clearly wrong and unnecessarily heavy handed, get the name, badge number date and time, names of witnesses, and make an official complaint with the Department...not the officer. If you start out heavy handed with an officer's reasonable inquiry, don't expect the tone of the contact to get better. I've never been stopped while taking photographs in public and I was in law enforcement for 34 years and never had occasion to confront a photographer....but that was before the modern era of terrorism.

Chuck

[Ken MT]

This covers some of the photographers rights in New Zealand, but there are a number of unanswered questions

http://clendons.co.nz/newsite/upload...%20Zealand.pdf

[Colin Southern]

This covers some of the photographers rights in New Zealand, but there are a number of unanswered questions

http://clendons.co.nz/newsite/upload...%20Zealand.pdf

Great find Ken - thanks for that.

[victor]

You might find the following useful re UK rights:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJH9F7Hcluo

Regards

Victor

[Ronny]

David added respond: The Photographer’s Right

A Downloadable Flyer Explaining Your Rights When Stopped or Confronted for Photography, is what I always have with me, I live in the LA area, when I have to take pictures for my client Realtors. I have been stopped and asked by many people what I am doing and I am not allowed to do that. I just show them that copy and let them read. After that they always walk away. Even a police officer.

[MrB]

Here is another example of a sickness that now infects our society -

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.p...article/11164/

Philip

[Steaphany]

Dan Heller wrote at length on this very subject:

Everything you ever wanted to know about model releases for photos of people, places, and things.

[shreds]

Passengers can take photographs with small cameras

But generally DSLRs are not seen as small cameras!

Beware of so called 'public places' that are actually private land but dont look like as such. I can think of numerous places in London Birmingham and elsewhere in the UK where the security jobsworth can ask you not to take pics including places like power stations etc, but they often overstep the mark and become a little power crazed. Just ring (or ask them to call) the Police and they will usually step down, although not all Police staff know the law either! For street photography I always carry a bundle of articles/Police official advice just in case but have never had to use it. Just be polite and calm.

On rail stations in the UK, do approach a member of staff first, and say its for personal use (otherwise the train company or Network Rail will want a cut of the repo fees), but generally its usually a case of get on with it...a few will give you the safety lecture before signing in, which is ok. DONT use flash as that really winds up any staff, although tourists seem to manage it all the time on the London Underground.

Oh and avoid the MI6 building in London. They probably spend all their time watching for people taking photos of the building, before hoisting you off never to be seen again!

Actually if I am on any street assignments in public I try to be as obvious and open as possible. Avoids the accusation of being underhand. James Bond meanwhile has snapped you with his pen phone and you never noticed.

[BenMosan]

Thank you Hoffstryker.

This article and your information has helped me understand a lot about when and what to shoot.

Benmosan

[rpcrowe]

Whatever the law is in any locality, the final problem is how the local uniforms interpret that law. Unless they have been taught/informed regarding individual rights, they are liable to tromp all over those rights. And, IMO, the only reason that a jurisdiction would go to the trouble of teaching/informing their security types (of all genres) about individual rights is when they have been hammered financially in a court...

You may eventually win in a contest against the uniforms but, it can be a PITA!

I have not lived in New York City since I was a boy but, way back then, permision had to be obtained from the city government before you could photograph while using a tripod in Central Park. That seems ridiculous but, it stemmed from the time when New York City was the center for silent film production in the USA. The city fathers did not want their park filled with motion picture crews shooting movies unless they were cut into the cash flow.

However, like many laws which were reasonable when passed, the tripod law was a PITA!

Of course here are some other ridiculous laws from New York which I found by doing a Google search (I cannot verify if these are actually laws but, they seem stupid enough to be passed by politicians):

It is illegal to congregate in public with two or more people while each wearing a mask or any face covering which disguises your identity.

In New York, adultery is still a crime.

It is illegal for a woman to be on the street wearing “body hugging clothing”.

Citizens may not greet each other by “putting one’s thumb to the nose and wiggling the fingers”.

A fine of $25 can be levied for flirting.

It is against the law to throw a ball at someone’s head for fun.

The penalty for jumping off a building is death.

New Yorkers cannot dissolve a marriage for irreconcilable differences, unless they both agree to it.

A person may not walk around on Sundays with an ice cream cone in his/her pocket.

Women may go topless in public, providing it is not being used as a business.

While riding in an elevator, one must talk to no one, and fold his hands while looking toward the door.

Slippers are not to be worn after 10:00 PM

BTW: New York doesn't have a monopoly on dumb laws.

In the USA, we call a ice cream concoction covered with some type of syrup, and with nuts and whipped cream added and topped by a cherry: a "SUNDAE" pronounced "Sunday"! How did it ever get that name?

Well, When soda fountains first came into popularity in America in the late 19th and early 20th Century, they became a place for young people to congregate on Sunday mornings partaking of ice cream sodas. This was a big no-no because it infringed on attendance at church services (horrors upon horrors). Since the religious right probably had more power in our nation then than it has now (hard to believe but, true), the people of the cloth in one locality had the city fathers pass a law against selling ice cream sodas on Sunday. That will take care of those godless young people who dared to attend the soda parlor instead of church where they belong.

But, that didn't solve the problem! To circumvent this truly wise and just law, some hooligan soda parlor operator designed an ice cream treat without soda and called that a "Sunday" which was corrupted into our present day "Ice Cream Sundae"! Doubtless he has found his place in Hades for that nefarious deed which attracted those godless young people away from church and obviously lead them to perdition! Or will he go the hell for inventing a treat that has added inches to many waistlines?

Sorry about going off on a humorous track about some important rights of the public. But imagine getting nabbed by the cops for carrying an ice cream cone in your pocket one Sunday morning!

[plugsnpixels]

As the tangled web of society gets thicker and thicker everything of this nature is becoming more of a problem. Combine that with the fact that municipalities are money-starved, and folks like us are a nice easy target.

In regards to photographing in public, my earliest memory of having to deal with this was in the early '80s when doing pinhole photos for my newspaper photo column with a Pringle's potato chip can/tube. I was sitting on a curb with the "camera" on the street propped up against the curb and a policeman in my small town drove over and asked what was going on. Nothing came of this once I explained it.

I'm not in photojournalism anymore but like to shoot all kinds of outdoor photos for my personal stock collection. I often do this while killing time waiting for someone, etc. A recent example of a minor run-in was while walking around the old section of a small town in SoCal. I was shooting artsy shots of an old church when a woman arrived, watched me for awhile and asked what I was doing. At times like this I am tempted to say, "It's documentation for the new owners, before they demolish it". Again, a quick explanation and I was on my way.

Admission: I photographed the underside of major bridges in NYC while on the Circle Line cruise a few years ago... Nobody cared.

PS: Glad the folks in Boston weren't stopped from using their cameras at the marathon!

[nimitzbenedicto]

Yes, it's very risky shooting in public if we aren't familiar with local laws.

--------------------------------------------------------------

The penalty for jumping off a building is death.

.

Gee! What an unfair penalty!

[Mike Buckley]

If you are photographing public transit facilities or potential terrorist targets and a police officer sees your actions as suspicious (for reasons he/she can reasonably articulate in court) he/she may talk to you to find out what you are doing.

I was photographing an interior of the customs area of a Canadian airport when a customs agent told me that I was not allowed to take photos there. I asked why. He explained that customs agents are in fear of having their photos posted on the Internet, which has the potential to place them and their families at personal risk. I offered that, though I had not thought of that, I assured him that I would stop and that I had not taken photos of any people. I then suggested that he and his fellow employees should convince the local authority to post signs in the area forbidding photography. He didn't respond and walked away.

[plugsnpixels]

Mike mentioned an airport setting which reminded my of a flight I was on several years ago with my wife and daughter, who were seated behind me. A friendly stewardess was joking with my wife so I turned around and snapped a quick pic. Stewardess suddenly got all uptight and demanded I delete the photo or else she would have me "met" at the gate. IIRC she explained she had been harassed before or something similar.

This also reminds me back in the '70s as a teen I always had my 35mm camera with me and as my family disembarked a flight, I took pix of the smiling captain and stewardesses as they said goodbye to everybody at the cabin door!

Finally, on a college trip to Europe in 1985, we stopped over briefly in Amsterdam and I got to test drive the plane! I defy any non-pilot to repeat this photo op today...

PS: I forgot to mention earlier that Google Glasses or whatever comes after them will throw a huge monkey-wrench into all of this photo legality.

[allenlennon]

Recently i had an issue with a friended person on facebook taking my images, and when confronted her in a polite way she claims im doing my photos illegally, and i searched up my rights as a photographer in Australian Arts Laws- http://www.artslaw.com.au/info-sheet...aphers-rights/ -

In which claims i can take what ever photos in public, on a public place, wether it is of people or buildings(with exceptions to law enforcement and defence), and you can take a photo of a person or a person house as long as i took the shot from a public place, i.e a street. And as long as im not using it for money reasons such as advertisement and for selling.

Now, even though im legally allowed to do so, if i took a photo of someone and they came to me and asked me not to use it, i will use common courtesy and grant them their not un-resonable request. But so far, all the photos of people i have uploaded i had their permission to do it, even though i can legally to do so.

[Colin Southern]

This also reminds me back in the '70s as a teen I always had my 35mm camera with me and as my family disembarked a flight, I took pix of the smiling captain and stewardesses as they said goodbye to everybody at the cabin door!

This is the real reason they don't like cameras in the cockpit!

[plugsnpixels]

That's funny Colin!

[MrB]

This is the real reason they don't like cameras in the cockpit!

They do look pleased with themselves, but maybe rightly so - they are showing real skill by flying their airliner backwards at that sort of speed, even if it does contravene regulations.

Philip

[Ken MT]

From 3 days ago in Wellington NZ
Here's an article on tvnz.co.nz about 3 days ago that you might be interested in.

US Embassy had no 'legal right' to enforce photography ban
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/us-e...-5425866/video

Colin may be really interested!

[Colin Southern]

They do look pleased with themselves, but maybe rightly so - they are showing real skill by flying their airliner backwards at that sort of speed, even if it does contravene regulations.

Philip

All credit to the other guys too though -- for flying their plane with 1/2 their left wing missing!

Mind you, it can't be that hard - this guy lost the whole wing and still landed OK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_gOs5wy2DY