It's Getting Beyond A Joke!

[Bidkev]

I went to a cultural festival today and was approached 3 times with the question, "have you asked for the parent's permission to photograph their kids?"

One shot was of a teenage choir and the other two were a general crowd shot all taken with a wide lens. All those inquiring were simply passers by without any kids who were simply sticking their nose in and none of them said a word to the guy with 2 full frame cameras slung and with flash attached..........someone from the local press I'm guessing? Neither was anything said to the umpteen folk blasting away with their tablets and phones!

Is it the tatts, beard, ear ring and flat top crop that had me as a target or simply the (unprofessional to them) m43 rig that set me apart as perhaps some sort of paedo/voyeur

I understand fully parental concern with regards to protecting their kids but it was hardly a swimming pool with their kids scantily dressed! It was an open/public festival for heavens sake! It was a family/community event where any shot would have had a kid somewhere in the frame!

 

[pellicle]

no, its just that Australia has gone bezerk lately

 

[wjiang]

I hear it's worse in the US and getting worse in Europe too with the GDPR.

 

[pellicle]

I hear it's worse in the US and getting worse in Europe too with the GDPR.

I was with a mate and he was photographing his daughter (gymnastics carnival) ... some twat said to him "have you asked permission to do this?"

So he said "can I take your photo" and she replied with a silly giggle "yes daddy".

moron exit stage left ... we both had motorbike gear on.

 

[retiredfromlife]

This is one of the reasons I won't try street photography, sad but it seems to be the way things are going

 

[pake]

Is it the tatts, beard, ear ring and flat top crop that had me as a target

My guess is this. Sadly there's always been (and most likely will be) prejudice towards people who don't "blend in" well enough.

 

[panamike]

Most of the silly Twonks are the ones that post pictures of their kids to f///book having a bath or playing on the beach.

We have a few poilice series on tv with cameramen riding alongside the officers, one woman complained to the officer she didnt want her children filming, the officer replied remove them from a public area then.

 

[Bidkev]

People harassing photographers understand very well that these predations don't happen in public where the children are being photographed. Their "ministrations" are designed only to let us know how enlightened they are when it comes to children and how important, how very, very, very important they are. We must remind them that there's no expectation of privacy in public and molestation is very difficult to accomplish when the child is surrounded by twenty people. Wherever possible we need to tell them to shut the hell up.

Fully agree. The people that confronted me today just seemed so full of their own self importance. Probably the very same people would be quick to complain about the "nanny state".

 

[wjiang]

A reminder that political discussions are against the ToS of this forum.

 

[wjiang]

I've managed to photograph crowds in NZ with everything from a telephoto to a fisheye. I mean they're in public, there are photographers with cameras and phones everywhere... It might help that I usually have family with me, and I guess I might look a bit like an Asian tourist...

On the other hand, I got hassled once by some homeless-folk in the Auckland CBD McDonalds who thought I was exploiting them and were pushing me to delete the pictures... I was like WTF... showed them my pictures, which were all of the architecture.

 

[Danny.]

I ended up with a cop pull up in front of me awhile ago Kev. Out in the middle of nowhere, but a lady in a farm house on the hill didn't like the 800 F/5.6 on a tripod trying to take hawk shots. Gees, you go to be kidding me and I told the cop to please tell her, I will be here again tomorrow. He took my details and that was the end of it when I showed him the shots. He went up to the farmhouse, so that must have calmed her down.

It's getting worse Kev and it doesn't get any better when you use a long lens either !! Mind you, I don't exactly wear a suit and the hair and beard probably doesn't help, but that's me. What can you do mate.

Danny.

 

[Ross the fiddler]

Sorry to hear it Kev. I feel I have to be careful now my kids have kids & my face has a grey & bushy beard (till it gets another trim). I would be seen as that dirty old man now so I avoid taking photos of children for the most part, but festival type occasions, they can go & suck a lemon (or whistle Dixie).

 

[coffeecat]

I used to carry a card with a short summary of photography laws in the UK. I won't post a link, since they probably go out of date, and vary between countries. It's probably not worth the argument, though, on the street. They can easily be found via Google, anyway.

I bought stuff like an 85mm f/1.8 old MF lens, thinking they would be useful for concerts, school plays etc. But 8 years into my school-parent phase of life, I've found photography to be not allowed well over half the time.

It amuses me that folk using phones often get left alone, even though they could easily be live-streaming to social media.

Anyway it's all moot because, after next spring, here in the UK I think citizens' right will all be slowly "rolled back", unless you are a genuine land-owning descendant of one of the Norman aristocracy who came over with Guillaume in 1066 </s>

 

[ThereAndBackAgain]

I'm equally concerned. I've been accused of paedophilia by a complete stranger because I raised my camera to photograph a 10 yr old girl as she entered a tourist attraction. The child was my grand-daughter and she was with her mother on the only day in the school holidays that I was able to spend with them. The screams of this foul crone across the entrance area of the attraction ruined my day. Eventually I silenced her by challenging her to phone the police and make her disgusting accusations properly. She refused, of course. I now refuse to take photographs of children even in the presence of parents and in fact find myself avoiding them wherever possible.

 

[DynaSport]

I was recently in a county park attempting to take wildlife photos. It was my first visit to that park and I wasn’t having much luck finding any wildlife. I ended up at the edge of the park and saw a House way way way off in the distance. I didn’t pay it much attention. Then a few minutes later I saw a man walking from the house in my direction. The park has a fence and a large ditch separating it from the private property. I waited for the man even I was ready to go because I thought leaving would make me look guilty. Sure enough, the man asked me what I was doing. I asked him what the problem was. He said he saw a man with a camera pointed at his property. I told him I was looking for wildlife and birds and was on public property. He responded that he had children and you couldn’t be too careful. I never saw any children and they would have looked like ants from that distance if I had. I try to be understanding in today’s world, but I thought this guy was just trying to be a tough guy. Something I don’t respond well to.

 

[Bidkev]

Yes, it's all pretty sad. I used to sell lots of stock images of bikini clad girls on Gold Coast beaches nearly all editorials selling world wide so I guess they were going in tourist mags and one beach looks the same as any other? I have given up on replenishing my stock with new pics as on one occasion, a young lifeguard insisted that I delete the shots and even after me explaining the law and giving him a business card he puffed his chest up like a rutting gorilla and kept mouthing off. In the end a crowd had gathered and I nearly lost it but settled for telling him to grow up and plss off and I simply walked away. I had a short fuse back then My card had an email addy and surprisingly, he later sent me a message apologising so he must have checked what I told him with regards to the law.

 

[curtisls87]

I don't try to directly provoke anyone, as I imagine most here are the same in that regard. However, I will stick to my guns regarding photography in public. The more we cow-tow to the ignorant, the fewer rights will remain. (this being applicable to USA laws, only)

 

[ToxicTabasco]

YouTube, recently put it on their creator studio page when uploading a video.

 

[wjiang]

YouTube, recently put it on their creator studio page when uploading a video.

To what 'it' are you referring to specifically?

 

[ionian]

I agree that it's common to find double standards in some respects - many people are happy to give away their privacy online but dislike having a photo taken without permission, for example.

But if you are making people uncomfortable by taking their pictures, why are you doing it? It can't be making great images and it has become socially unacceptable, even if the law is on your side. The beach shots that @Bidkev mentions he used to take in the past are a good example of something that I would think plenty of people would be uncomfortable with today. I'm not criticising individuals and attitudes are different in different places of course.

We run up against difficult people in all walks of life. How we handle that is down to all of us, but I have found that being bold but non confrontational when out with my camera yields me generally positive results. There was a great video with Zack Arias on YouTube that I can't now find, but he could come across as quite an imposing figure and yet the way he charms and disarms people on the street is magic.