Candid photos of young women

climbing_vine said:
Very true, and the subject of an excellent essay by Wendell Berry. "Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community".

And the notion that people have no privacy in public is self-evidently asinine. It's not the same AMOUNT of privacy that you have a right to in your home, but privacy is not binary. If you had no privacy in public, it would be legal for me to walk up to you on the train, open your briefcase, read your papers, and return them to you (and a more important test than legality is that our society would not think it rude).

The fact that we retain the right to be secure in our persons and papers outside of our own home makes it quite clear that there is "privacy" in public, the question up for reasonable debate is "how far does it extend?". Those who want the answer to be otherwise should consider it more carefully (speaking charitably).
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The 4th Amendment "right to privacy" (see the Katz SCOTUS case) and all Constitutionally-protected rights are not applicable to private conduct; they are only pertinent to the relationship between the government and the people.

While it's not legal to walk up and take someone's stuff and look through it, it's because it's illegal to take someone's stuff, not because of a right to privacy.

And the expectation of privacy in public vis a vis the government is well-trodden ground. You still have a reasonable expectation of privacy in many places and circumstances, but it is not reasonable, for example, to expect privacy in where you go or what you do that's visible to the public (and thus that an image may be made of you while doing it). You do have a right to privacy under your clothes or in your closed luggage, for example. But that is totally inapplicable to photographers in general, unless they're working for the government and photographing on government business.

Laws, not Constitutional rights, are what govern the question at hand.

Edit to add: I can't believe this went three pages of posts before Winogrand was mentioned!!
 
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-- self-censored, because yet another rehash of people's uninformed opinions about the law and the history of our civil society is pointless.
 
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climbing_vine said:
-- self-censored, because yet another rehash of people's uninformed opinions about the law and the history of our civil society is pointless.
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"uninformed?"

Sorry, buddy, but the right "to be secure in persons and papers" you refer to (a quote from the 4A) does NOT have anything to do with you or me photographing anyone on the street.

It has to do with a citizen and the government, no matter what you may think.

There are/may be laws which are applicable to privacy, depending on where you are in the States. These laws may or may not be directed specifically towards photography.

For example, it's illegal to tap someone's phone because there's a federal law saying you can't, and the nature of a telephone network provides a nexus for federal jurisdiction.
 
AgentX said:
"uninformed?"

Sorry, buddy, but the right "to be secure in persons and papers" you refer to (a quote from the 4A) does NOT have anything to do with you or me photographing anyone on the street.

It has to do with a citizen and the government, no matter what you may think.

There are/may be laws which are applicable to privacy, depending on where you are in the States. These laws may or may not be directed specifically towards photography.

For example, it's illegal to tap someone's phone because there's a federal law saying you can't, and the nature of a telephone network provides a nexus for federal jurisdiction.
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Yes, because the fourth amendment occurred in a vacuum. Buddy.

You might notice I referred to the concept, not the amendment itself. There's a reason for that. You don't know what you're talking about.

You might also notice that I very specifically said that photographing people in the street is legal in this country. I'm arguing for not against your point, and trying to introduce some necessary nuance, but apparently you can't read and are just interested in arguing.
 
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Not in a vacuum at all. In line with common law. Which was directed against the sovereign's potential for abuse of power by violating home and hearth, not at all concerned with what one private person does to another.

Either way, as long as the discussion is clear on that. I am constantly irritated when people talk about, for example, an employer infringing on their "right to free speech." Such a right doesn't exist in that context. Sorry if it got my back up.
 
AgentX said:
Not in a vacuum at all. In line with common law. Which was directed against the sovereign's potential for abuse of power by violating home and hearth, not at all concerned with what one private person does to another.

Either way, as long as the discussion is clear on that. I am constantly irritated when people talk about, for example, an employer infringing on their "right to free speech." Such a right doesn't exist in that context. Sorry if it got my back up.
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That's exactly what I wrote before going back and deleting it. The central bit being that what one individual does to another is already covered by common law. "Assault" is, essentially, an immediate violation of privacy. The sort that leads you to think you are in imminent danger of physical harm, like, say, a person walking up to you on the street and beginning to go through your pockets. They're not hurting you, they haven't taken anything, but they're guilty of assault which is a catch-all for "invading my personal space and thus making me think I'm in danger." There's no assault if you go through a person's things while they're down the street getting coffee. Assault is essentially about your right to be secure in your person, and the fourth amendment was a way of making clear that: "and now soldiers and other agents of the government aren't immune to this restriction anymore--in fact, we're going to bind them with a higher authority than just the common law".

Sorry for assuming that discussing it would be pointless. That's disrespectful.
 
A young girl returning from Mexico with her new dog, a terrier/chihuahua mix (Terrhuahua? Chirrier?)

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like you, piazza63, I only take pictures of ugly, homely girls. It's not MY fault some sick people find them a turn-on :)
 
I haven't got all the way through the thread yet, but I'll try and put down some thoughts.

As an adult male photographer who does quite a bit of photography, there are some shots that I simply won't take, because of how they could be perceived, not because of any intent behind them or anything inherently sinister, but because there can be a perception of photographers as creepy, and sadly I feel a pressure to distance myself from anything that could fall into that category.

A specific example, a couple of years ago I took a photo of a lone young girl (maybe 4) chasing pigeons, some of the pigeons were taking flight. It's nothing ground breaking or that hasn't been done before, it was just a "nice" photo.

However when it came to posting the picture up online I became over-concious of the issues around images of minors, after sleeping on it I decided not to "publish" the image, just to be completely safe.
Paranoid? possibly, overcautious? possibly, but I felt that it was a decision that I was "encouraged" to make to avoid any potential issues simply because of the age of the subject.

This is a ridiculous state of affairs, and clearly if everyone acted the way I had we would have missed many iconic photos from the likes of Diane Arbus etc, but I am aware of the "creepy guy with the camera" stereotype, and take steps to distance myself from it.

Equally there's a photographer in my home town who drives a taxi, and uses it as a way to try and recruit young female models, I've only met him the one time (a friend has had the "pleasure" more than once) but he wasted no time in showing his portfolio of scantily clad youngish women, and making comments that frankly creeped me out and made me feel uneasy (not an easy task).

So yes, there are some people for whom photography is a means to behave in ways that some might find uncomfortable (I know that in this specific case I did), and I know that the fact that there are people like that impacts the work that people doing photography for the photography rather than for other purposes.

But I don't know how to do anything about separating them, I don't know how (other than gut feeling) you decide that there's no "art" in someone's work, as it's such a subjective thing.
 
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