can of worms: stranger pictures

There is no shortage of photographers who have made or still make a living doing street photography. Some people shoot on the street for art or fun, others scour for a juicy news bit, and others are just taking pictures of buildings or their own family and strangers happen to get caught in the background. No matter what the original purpose, laws in Canada regarding being photographed in public reads something like, you have no right to privacy, where no reasonable expectation of privacy exists. For example, I can photograph you sitting in a sidewalk cafe or attending a festival, but I can't follow you inside the bathroom stall to snap a few pictures, and I can take a picture of you on the street out in front of your house, but probably not in your backyard. No one has the right to demand your film or camera or memory card, unless of course the police are there with a warrant, and the images you capture are considered your intellectual property and fall under your right to artistic expression. There are also laws against images being potrayed in the 'wrong light,' for example, a random law-abiding teenager who just happens to be sitting in front of a wall someone else covered in graffiti, with the caption, "Youth Vandalism on the Rise."

Now. This is all fine and good, but it does raise a few moral and ethical questions for me, personally, as I am very uncomfortable and creeped out by strangers wanting pictures of my kids or me and am sensitive to this fact in those around me. For what purpose do you want a picture? Are you a hobby photographer and just think we're cute? Are you going to go post my child on some pedophile hot-or-not site? What the hell, how am i supposed to know, you know? Then of course sometimes the issue of money gets involved. If I shoot a street scene and there happens to be a person or 12 sitting in it who are obviously the primary subjects and not just the unsuspecting flotsam and jetsam sitting around the fountain I am photographing, and I manage to sell that image to a newspaper or magazine or enter it into some sort of competition where I receive a cash or kind prize, the subject(s) may feel entitled to all or a portion of the funds. It becomes a question of whether a person's right to their own image trumps a photographer's "art."

This is not a new debate. The Supreme Court has seen cases come and go, with rulings in favour of both sides, for any number of reasons - location, age of subject, content, monies received, lawful or unlawful uses, etc. and I waffle on how I feel about this issue on any given day. This is the set of laws that gives me the freedoms I have and as a photographer I genuinely appreciate the ability to photograph, say, the Empire State Building, without needing a permit to clear everyone out before I can do so or model releases from all of them before I can print it. I also genuinely appreciate the fact that shooting all variety of street scenes, regardless of how prominent or recognizable the subject(s) might be, make for some mighty fine art.

Now, for the most part, the people I photograph obviously pay me to do it, and consent is express and/or implied that I am supposed to be doing that. However, I do go street shooting, and no I don't always ask for permission, but I do tend to carry a huge stack of business cards, a deck of smokes, and pocket change, just in case I get busted shooting and need to explain. Usually though, I am very sneaky about it. I'll shoot from behind trees or bushes, or from inside the van. The reason I take this approach is because when you identify to most people that you are taking their picture, they 'pose' whether they mean to or not. They carry themselves differently, walk differently, change the expressions on their face subtly, and the scene then loses its spontaneity and sense of random everyday-ness. I also often try and respect a person's privacy by taking pictures in such a way that the subject isn't necessarily recognizable. Most of us walking down the street aren't looking into people's faces. We're watching the ground go by - a series of shoes, a brief blurry sideways glance at a group of people playing hacky-sack, a couple holding hands over a romantic dinner, some pigeons on a rooftop... Save for a few that stick in our minds for whatever reason, I doubt most of us would recognize half the people we pass by on a day-to-day basis if we were shown their picture even 5 minutes let alone weeks or months or years later, because we saw them in a blur. Therefore, when I go street shooting, I try and embrace this feeling of walking along in a series of fleeting moments, taking no more time to focus and compose what I'm shooting than I normally would my vision while commuting from point a to b. (The "crotch shot" I always reference is great for this, which really is only taken from the crotch on occasion and can also be accomplished by merely holding the camera at waist height, or poking it out of a pocket, or pretending to hold it under your arm and shooting backwards...)

So if the (primary) subjects in the photo are readily recognizable, I am tempted to introduce myself and hand out a business card, and I make my models sign a model release. It is implied as well as written for clients that I retain 100% copyright of my images and am free to do whatever I lawfully choose with them, while they are given limited rights to make reproductions and enlargements for personal use only. I did have a legal issue once with a client who entered an image of her child that I had photographed into a competition, in which she won a monetary prize. I took her to small claims court not because I gave a damn about the money, but because she took credit for the image based on the fact it was a picture of her child. Small claims court was the fastest, easiest way to make my point about copyright infringement, instead of a lengthy drawn-out court battle which she would ultimately have lost and been ordered to pay me anyways.

I also know some people who, despite the fact they frequent public places, are intensely private. I have a couple of friends who, although I've taken many pictrues of their kids, they prefer not to have any recognizable images of their children splashed on my website or blog, and I completely respect that. And although I often share stories and pictures of my family, I am myself a very private person, who loves using her married name and making it as difficult as possible for people I have no desire to talk with ever again find me; hence, although I don't really CARE if a picture of me is posted on the internet, I don't want you to 'tag' or otherwise identify me in photos on Facebook or the likes.

Anyhow. The questions that always arise are pretty much the same no matter what the circumstances are. Legally, it's: Does the photographer or the subject own the rights to an image? On a personal level it's: How do you feel about other people being legally allowed to photograph you and your family, your children, without your prior consent? Would you feel entitled to compensation if a photographer won or earned money from an image unknowlingly captured of you or one of your children? Would you be mad to see pictures of you or your children prominently featured in someone else's pictures posted on the internet by whatever stranger just happened to be in the right place at the right time to snap you? Would you be comfortable allowing a stranger to take and use pictures of you if they asked for prior consent? Why or why not?

Wade on in, peoples!

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