david3558
leicaboss
That was awesome post, I enjoyed reading that, I really agree with many of the points you bring up.
Beginner thinks out loud
- Thread starter JackForster
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Jamie123
Veteran
Yeah sure, I've done that before (not "can I include you" but "can I take your picture") but, as you say, it's not the same thing. Anyways, like I said, that is only one reason why I don't do too much street photography. Another is that interested in it. I used to be when I started out but found out that I prefer to do other kinds of photography. Still do a little bit of street photography whenever I'm abroad, though.
It's not like I completely refrain from taking pictures of someone just because they don't like it. I often take pictures of friends who hate being photographed. I tell them that they better just get used to it because it's not gonna stop 🙂
Juan Valdenebro
Truth is beauty
Nomad Z
Well-known
Maybe the ones who do think it's theirs, and don't want you to have it, are the ones with the paper bags over their heads. As for the rest, I guess it's a judgement call the photographer has to make at the time. I do find this 'ethical' argument a bit odd - who's ethics? What is it that makes taking someone's picture 'unethical'? What particular ethical code or maxim is being broken?
JackForster
Established
You know ethics aside (whew!) I do find it very odd what people do and do not notice. If I have the Leica and it's set up right nine times out of ten it doesn't seem to really register that a picture was taken, or if it does it is over so fast no one seems bothered. What people don't like is when you stand there, staring through the viewfinder fiddling with the settings --it's as if it's not so much the picture per se that bothers them as the more visceral experience of being stared at (which seems to activate a rather ancient primate territorial defensive reaction.)
I just went out with an NEX 5 (sacrilege!) and shot from the waist at night with a fast 50mm, focusing manually, but people are so used to other people staring down at glowing rectangles mostly nobody noticed that either.
Jack
JackForster
Established
Well I think there are a lot of issues potentially at play depending on the situation. First it's possible for a candid photograph of a stranger to be exploitive rather than compassionate --earlier in this post someone mentioned a picture someone had taken of a beggar in India that clearly felt as if the person had been dehumanized by being treated as an exotic ornament to a vacation trip, rather than recognized as a suffering human being.
Secondly there is the question of ownership of and control of the use of one's likeness. This was an issue even before the Internet but digital photography and the ease with which images can be both modified and distributed means that if someone takes your picture, you have the possibility that things will be done with it you don't approve and can't control.
Thirdly there is the question of invasion of privacy. This is much more a matter of social norms, perhaps, than the others --in the United States photography is protected by law (as I understand it) in public places as a person in a public place does not, to quote the relevant statue, "have a reasonable expectation of privacy." The statutory language notwithstanding, however, many of us would not under other circumstances make another person the focus of our attention in the way we do when we photograph them, and that other person may feel such attention is an invasion of privacy.
I think all three are possble issues street photography raises; I think the documentary and aesthetic value of street photography justifies our engaging with those issues as photographers rather than being rendered passive by them, although I think a thoughtful photographer can't help but consider them.
And of course not all street photography raises such issues; the gentleman leaping over the puddle in the famous HCB picture "Behind the Gare St. Lazare" cannot be identified and so cannot reasonably be thought to be having his likeness exploited (there is a gorgeous picture I was looking at last night by Robert Doisneau that shows a figure in silhouette against a strong haze; it is a woman but that's about all you can tell. A similarly non-problematic image.)
Cheers,
Jack
JackForster
Established
Thank you and I also think there have been lots of really interesting replies; not all in agreement with some or all of the concerns raised in the original post but then I've long since given up expecting people to agree with me. Hoping for it, but not expecting it 😀.
Jack
Jamie123
Veteran
What I meant is simply that I use their likeness for my picture.
Sparrow
Veteran
... my film, my camera, my photograph as far as I can see ... they get to keep their likeness
JackForster
Established
Hi Stewart --you are the owner of the _photograph_ (and at least here in the United States the creation thereof confers copyright automatically, if I remember correctly) however a person's likeness or image does _not_ belong to you and is not, except under certain circumstances, yours to use as you see fit. Otherwise an advertising agency, for instance, could simply take a photograph of any individual they pleased on the street and use it without compensation. For an interesting discussion of the legal aspects of the matter see this link:
http://library.findlaw.com/1998/Aug/1/129009.html
That's the reason models get paid 😉 their likeness is being used for commercial reasons.
Jack
Sparrow
Veteran
I was stating my ethics, rather than the legality ... that's how I feel
PS Here in the UK there is no legal expectation of privacy in public
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Neare
Well-known
It should be noted that this law only applies to commercial uses of photography in most countries (there are exceptions). Photos made of strangers but done for artistic reasons are not subject to that law. You can get away with almost anything as long as you are taking the photo from public ground.
JackForster
Established
As far as I have read the law as well as much of the discussion of the ethics of photography, there is widespread recognition of the distinction you make --a person is understood to have the right to exert control over the use of their image, except under particular circumstances.
The article linked to in my reply below seems to state that the publication of a person's likeness without their consent is legally defensible in the United States if such publication serves a "socially useful" purpose and the creation of a work of art seems to enjoy such protection. That there is room among reasonable persons for debate on the subject is clear from the differing opinion offered by the Canadian Supreme Court, however. Here's the link again just for reference:
http://library.findlaw.com/1998/Aug/1/129009.html
Such laws exist because obviously, there is some recognition that a person's image should enjoy at least some degree of protection from frivolous use which might tend to defame their character (for instance) or which would expose them to commercial exploitation without their consent or an ability to benefit from it. I think it's also clear that a reasonable person (whatever that means 🙂 ) would also recognize that the use of a person's image without their consent is justifiable under certain circumstances --the creation of a work of art (whatever thate means 😉 ) or for editorial/journalistic purposes.
Now it is certainly possible to argue (and I suspect some of the contributors to this thread would do so) that arguments for a person's right to control the use of their image, especially when that use is non-commercial, are superseded by the --well, one could call it, as US privacy law apparently does, a "socially useful" purpose, under the rubric of which one might plausibly include the creation of works of art. A key point here, however, is that _a person whose picture is being taken does not know to what purpose the image will be used_, and there are many instances of a person's picture being taken and that picture later being used in a way that they find objectionable, with the result sometimes being legal action taken against the photographer or publisher of the image.
I'm going on this rather long-winded tour through the legal aspects of the question because it brings up what to me is a very salient point. The person being photographed does not know the photographer's intentions. Thus it is reasonable (I think) to at least admit the possibility that a person at whom you've aimed a camera, who does not know what use you intend to make of their image, would object to haveing their picture taken on the grounds that they don't know how you're going to use it. No superstitious, unreasonable, or psychiatrically unsound state of mind need be assumed on the subject's part --they siimply may not want to have their image taken by a complete stranger for some purpose to which they're not privy.
Jack
Sparrow
Veteran
... yes I imagine one could get a US lawyer to ague such, but it would still be twaddle wouldn't it? as a defence to murder He was looking at my girlfriend and I wasn't sure of his intentions wouldn't cut it would it?
JackForster
Established
Hi Neare,
That's an interesting question --I doubt you could get away with using a person's image in a defamatory or libelous fashion but then again, if they're making an ass of themselves in public (a rioter breaking a store window, for instance) they might be hard pressed to object 😉 .
You're quite right as far as I know that photographers working in public enjoy the right to take pictures of other people, situations, etc. as long as it is not for commercial purposes, but the point I was making above is that a person who is having their picture taken doesn't know what the photographer's intention is, and I can understand someone objecting to having their picture taken on those grounds. The case cited in the link at least points out that there is room for difference of opinion on the degree to which a person can be thought to sacrifice the right to control use of their image, even in public.
Cheers,
Jack
JackForster
Established
Hi Stewart, as far as I know there is no legal expecxtation of privacy when a person is in public in the US either, but with certain constraints (see my other replies on this issue.)
Do I take it from your reply that you would argue that a moral agent (to use fancy technical jargon 😉 ) need not consider the state of mind of other moral agents in ethical decision making, but only his or her own needs? And in your reply are you arguing, as seems to logically follow from your remark, that a person should, the law notwithstanding, be unable to object to the use of their picture for commercial purposes? After all the formulation "my camera, my film, my picture" seems to leave no room for the virtually universally recognized notion that a person _does_ have the right to control at least commercial use of their image.
Jack
Jack
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Sparrow
Veteran
... did you ever see Minority Report? intent is not sufficient I'm afraid, do we ban everyone from driving because we can't be sure of the drivers intended speed?
JackForster
Established
Well, of course not, although I'm sure you realize that's a straw-man argument; someone killing you because they don't like the way you look at your girfriend is not a good analogy for someone objecting to their image being used in a way they can't control. One is a civil interaction, the other is, you know, homicide, and both legally and morally there does seem to be a _small_ difference.
Jack
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Stewart,
As I recall, a leading case was a very upright Mormon elder, or some such church worthy, who found a picture of him on water-skis being used to advertise an article on a hedonistic life-style in Playboy. Quite rightly, he sued, and won. That's why we have model releases.
But, like you, I do not find the argument that "I don't know what you're going to do with that picture" to be at all compelling, simply because 'the devil himself knoweth not the mind of man'. The whole concept of 'the reasonable man', aka 'the man on the Clapham omnibus', is the subject of a great deal of case law, but the only criterion most of us can apply is whether we think something is reasonable.
Of course, some of us are gibbering loonies, and therefore find all sorts of things reasonable or unreasonable, but there still tends to be a consensus, even on RFF. It does seem, however, that there are sometimes variations in national prejudices and world-pictures.
Cheers,
R.
JackForster
Established
Hi Stewart,
A spirited rejoinder to be sure although as with your comment above I think this is an example of a fallacious argument from analogy.
Firstly, we in fact DO ban people from driving when we have a reasonable suspicion they intend to speed (or otherwise drive unsafely.) The evidence in such a case is that they have done so before. If I have enough moving violations, this is considered sufficient evidence that I may do so (that is, intend to do so, if you will allow the point) and so based on the presumption that what I have done in the past I intend to do in the future, my driving privileges may be revoked.
Secondly I think "drivers may intend to speed so all should be banned" analogizes poorly to "I don't know what use Stewart will make of my image and so prefer to not have my picture taken." In the former case an unreeasonable assumption is being made about all classes of drivers, in the absence of any compelling evidence that the objectionable behavior in question will actually occur. In the second, however, I would argue that a reasonable person would be quite justified in assuming a risk of their image being used in a way they don't approve, or cannot control --as a matter of fact, if you have ever published a street photograph of someone whose consent to use their image you did not secure, you yourself stand as evidence of the argument. The very existence of this forum, to say nothing of Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket, Twitter pictures, et cetera and ad nauseam speak to the ubiquity of digital distribution, as well as the reasonableness of assuming that a picture taken of a person today will be on the web tomorrow.
My interest in this question by the way is not as an outside observer nor am I arguing that there is anything _inherently_ immoral or unethical about street photography. I obviously do think, however, that street photography touches on some interesting issues of privacy and rights to the distribution and use of one's image, and I think you would have to agree, if not with some of my position, that at least there is considerable evidence that I'm not exactly a voice crying alone in the wilderness 😉 . You are quite free to practice photography as you see fit, and I am quite free to burn electrons pondering the issues that such practices raise. I am actually rather bemused (and amused) by the strident tone of some of the earlier responses --as if I or anyone else who comments on the ethics of street photography is somehow empowered to endanger the practice!
When I practiced medicine I was very interested in the principle of informed consent. The ideal is a patient who understands completely the risk/benefit ratio in any intervention and consents to that intervention on the basis of a complete understanding of the risks and benefits appertaining thereunto. This is, obviously, an ideal that is for all intents and purposes impossible. A lot of the work I did was in the late stage care of cancer patients and I can guarantee you, not only the patients but also the physicians in many cases were quite in the dark as to what the real risk/benefit ratio of any intervention might be. However, that didn't stop me from doing the work at hand. I did feel, however, that it was my responsiblity to explain as thoroughly as I could what those ratios might be (within my particular domain of practice) and where there were gaps in our understanding, let the patient know. Likewise, I don't think the fact that candid photographs of strangers in public places often are taken without the subject having consented to it means it shouldn't be done. I do think, however, that the practice raises quite interesting ethical questions, and I think considering them has the potential to actually enrich the practice of photography, inasmuch as it recognizes a real human aspect of what we do, and encourages a habit of empathizing with our subjects that makes for better images.
Otherwise you might as well take a picture of a lampost.
Jack
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