Don't be a creep!

[ruby.monkey]

Very appropriate, Michael!

I imagine that the original poster sees himself rather more like this...

At least the offending photographer will be safe.

 

[DominikDUK]

Was it really a tele lens or maybe it was a superzoom that looks like a tele even at the wide setting. Streetphotography only for 35mm and 50mm lens users all others aren't Streetphotographers but creeps. Seriously sometimes people want to compress the perspektive by using a tele lens people bitching about tele users are very shortsighted the tele lens has several uses and can create different visual effects.

 

[Steveh]

No, none of that, you're trying to put words into my mouth.

Imagine yourself walking down the street. At one corner, a beautiful blond 20 something woman takes your picture, quickly and discreetly, with a film Leica, gives you an open, friendly smile to say thank you and moves on. At the next one, a poorly dressed, shifty looking middle aged man with a DSLR and long lens blasts off 5 quick shots of you and your family and then pointedly looks away and shuffles off before you can make eye contact and get a feel for what he might be doing.

Forget the cameras, can you honestly say there's no difference in the nature and quality of those two interactions, whatever age or sex you are? And I say that as middle aged, balding sometime DSLR user

So.. let me guess, using leica 'properly', maybe a silver leica hanging on the neck with a smily face, will buy someone the name ''a truly nice artist and photographer'' and distinguish him from jerk/a'hole..
And Canon Nikon tele users can never have that name.. even they finally get a black Leica and say ''hey, finally I get a light portable camera! I no longer want my neck hurt so Imma just put it in my pocket!''
Ad the reason they buy black is just silver runs out, or, they don't like them, who knws, who cares.

 

[lawrence]

I couldn't find the original source, but this post reminds me of this great Bukowski poem.

a photography poem

Thanks, that's an interesting perspective. The real question for me is WHY people don't want to be photographed. I just got back from India where people actually ask to be photographed, whereas in Morocco taking photographs in the street can be a dangerous occupation.

Perhaps it's a religious issue in Morocco but surely in the West this isn't the case. Maybe the OP can enlighten us?

 

[robert blu]

The photographer in question is an a'hole. As far as I am concerned a part of the unwritten "code" of street shooting is that if someone does not wish to be photographed then the photographer should respect that, smile, wave and move on. Good karma to him. But if they don't do this and push the issue, then they should not complain if they get belted in the gob by someones fist. I am not advocating violence mind you - just reflecting that disrespectful behaviour can attract a disrespectful and sometimes physical response. Its impossible to understand the state of mind of a stranger in the street. Maybe they just had an argument with their wife and are in an uncompromising mood, maybe they are cheating on their wife and don't want to be photographed. Maybe they came from a culture where being photographed is a hostile act by dangerously autocratic authorities. You just don't know - so a proper person respects it when they realize that a particular person does not like being photographed. And don't quote law and precedent at me. That's not the issue - its about good manners. Of course the banana with the camera probably fancies himself as a papparazzo and like many of his breed thinks its OK to provoke people to get a reaction. Like I said - what an a'hole.

I agree 100%. It's not about a law, we all know this. It's a question to be polite and have a kind of respect in confront of anyone who for his own reason doesn't like to be photographed.
robert

 

[lawrence]

I often wonder why people mind having the picture taken in public places. What is it they are worried about? What exactly do they think these pictures could 'do' to them?

My thoughts also. Maybe they've been swatting up on their Susan Sontag and see the photographer as 'appropriating' something that doesn't belong to them. I do hope the OP will enlighten us.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

The real question for me is WHY people don't want to be photographed.

I think that there are a lot of different causes. In some countries, as you say, there is no problem about being photographed. Here's an interesting shot, in that context...

A few years ago, my wife and I were walking down the main shopping street in Worgle, a little Austrian town. A bunch of children came up to us and, unabashedly asked me to take their picture. My wife's German being far better than mine, she was the first to understand that they had aquired a hamster from somewhere and wanted me to photograph them with it.

Contrast that with England, where children sometimes seem to be taught to actively fear adults in general and being photographed in particular...

"Das ist mein Hamster, Herr Fotografen"

 

[helen.HH]

Rather Surprised ...Silly really
For Someone who loves to Photograph taking Offense at being Photographed

I"ll try not to take you too seriously and just chalk it up to a bad Mood. ...

 

[lawrence]

Contrast that with England, where children sometimes seem to be taught to actively fear adults in general and being photographed in particular...

Sadly that isn't going to change any time soon, given the recent spate of scandals and prosecutions for sexual harassment, paedophilia etc. The majority must suffer because of the few and to even ask to photograph a child here would probably get you arrested. The days of the great British street photographers like Roger Mayne are over.

Let me tell you of an experience I had a month or two back. I was taking photographs of an old oak tree on some public parkland when a boy in his early teens went charging by me on his motorcycle. Motorcycling is forbidden in the park and so I turned round and stared at him, which point he came screeching to a halt and asked 'Why are you photographing me?'. I replied that I was photographing the oak tree and that he's wasn't permitted to ride his bike in the park, to which I replied 'I don't care'. My off the cuff response was to tell him to piss off to which he replied 'Are you telling me to piss off'. I confirmed that I was to which his reply was 'Right, then...' and go storming off on the bike.

In this country the chances of an accurate account of these events being believed are, I think, minimal. The issue wouldn't be that the boy was breaking the law and disturbing the peace of a Sunday morning, it would be why a man on his own would, according to the boy's account, be out taking photographs of children. Anyway, I didn't wait around to find out.

 

[daveleo]

You know, compared to all rudeness and stupidity and evil going on out there, taking pictures is a relatively minor offense.
But I would be equally pissed off at him because he ignored your wave off and he should have respected it.

 

[film nut]

sometimes you can't tell if a person is actually taking a picture of you. He may have been taking a picture of a naked woman in an upstairs window in a building behind you. You just don't know unless you see what's in the camera.

MIke

 

[Michael Markey]

In this country the chances of an accurate account of these events being believed are, I think, minimal. The issue wouldn't be that the boy was breaking the law and disturbing the peace of a Sunday morning, it would be why a man on his own would, according to the boy's account, be out taking photographs of children. Anyway, I didn't wait around to find out.

Sadly very true.
Whilst we all must be considerate and polite I`m afraid that its the over sensitivity as expressed by the op that encourages this curtailment of our freedoms.

There are times , I`m sure, when we all feel that we don`t want to be photographed.
However I think it behoves us to reflect for a minute what the consequences of that may be.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Actually Roger I think there are a huge number of people who could benefit from anger management, they are skills that can be taught and that can and do change people's lives for the better, and even people who provide anger management courses have to eat. There are many worse rip-offs in the personal development world.

Perhaps living in rural France gives you a different perspective to those of us who have to drive on overcrowded roads and battle through major cities for work every day.

True, but so do drug dealers and hit men.

There's a book called "Healing Anger" by HH Dalai Lama which is a lot cheaper and probably, for many, more efficacious than an online course.

And yes, your'e right, but why do you think I moved to rural France? Though I don't recall "inner city" Bristol as being especially anger-provoking, either, when I lived there from 1974 to 1987.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Sparrow]

... and another thing; I wouldn't have said the finger was far from "the international sign language" of disapproval, its use is more common in the US and its acolytes I would have said ... much of the rest of the world manages with the traditional two-fingered salute popularised so well by the touring British soldiers over the years

 

[OurManInTangier]

These types of threads can often become a touch disheartening. So much bluster, machismo and at times barely controlled anger and so little empathy, understanding or even curiosity from either side of the fence.
We can all quote the law regarding our rights, it seems almost fashionable these days whether you're a photographer or just a 'lippy' kid, within the country or area we live but I'm always surprised when so few make the point that the law is there in many ways as a fall back, when our humanity fails. If you're incapable of picking up on the various indicators we have that allow us to read a situation involving another member of our species. Or you struggle to adopt the accepted social behaviour of the place in which you find yourself then I wonder not only if street photography is for you but whether a public street itself is the place for you.

"Street photography is the new skateboarding." You'll get no argument from me there, so many 'photographers' out there now that this kind of encounter will be a much greater issue in the next few years. Of course that's the negative viewpoint, the positive being that when the fad has washed away we may be left with some extraordinarily talented young photographers that came to photography simply because it was a faddish, fashionable and 'cool' thing to do initially.

Finally, having moaned about the tough guy routines, the lack of empathy and all the posturing generally it does go some way to explaining why I continue to love photographing people and the interactions they have in this world. Despite the backlash against the current popularity/hipster love, the snobbery from other realms of the photographic world and the misunderstanding from those that (probably because of unnecessary situations) feel assaulted and abused the streets and places that we congregate are an epic and continuing tale of our species in all of its beauty and ugliness. What's not to love about that?

 

[Roger Hicks]

No, none of that, you're trying to put words into my mouth.

Imagine yourself walking down the street. At one corner, a beautiful blond 20 something woman takes your picture, quickly and discreetly, with a film Leica, gives you an open, friendly smile to say thank you and moves on. At the next one, a poorly dressed, shifty looking middle aged man with a DSLR and long lens blasts off 5 quick shots of you and your family and then pointedly looks away and shuffles off before you can make eye contact and get a feel for what he might be doing.

Forget the cameras, can you honestly say there's no difference in the nature and quality of those two interactions, whatever age or sex you are? And I say that as middle aged, balding sometime DSLR user

Dear Steve,

Nice thought experiment!

Cheers,

R.

 

[whited3]

oh geez here we go. My 1st reply was whimsical, but seeing the subsequent posts from the OP I gather there's a bit more grudge than I originally picked up on: happiness comes from within, bud. If you get to the point where you assault the guy, there's really no relevance to the amount of jerk he was being... so laugh it off.

The ol' USA has lost some face in recent times, but the legality of public photography is one of the lingering rights that still make me a proud American. By the way, It's human nature to take more photos of someone flipping the bird.

Embrace the raw taste of freedom. Don't bail on the good ship USA

 

[Roger Hicks]

... and another thing; I wouldn't have said the finger was far from "the international sign language" of disapproval, its use is more common in the US and its acolytes I would have said ... much of the rest of the world manages with the traditional two-fingered salute popularised so well by the touring British soldiers over the years

Then there's always Greece (among other places), where the hitch-hiking "thumb up" gesture apparently means the same thing.

But then, the less people know about other cultures, the more inclined they are to attribute universality to their own parish.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

the streets and places that we congregate are an epic and continuing tale of our species in all of its beauty and ugliness. What's not to love about that?

I agree with that sentiment entirely. You just need to look and you'll see good things everywhere. Try never to lose that young view of the world.

 

[Jack Conrad]

Street photography is inherently creepy; creeping around taking images of people and things, surreptitiously hiding tiny black cameras under our clothing, or even worse, exposing our big white zooms to strangers in public. Think of the children!

That's why we need to petition Government to put more surveillance cameras on the streets to protect us from the unseemly epidemic of creepy scary street photography.

In the meantime, it's important that we photographers condemn one another's actions online, to try and psychologically lessen the guilt inherent in the inherent creepiness of our mutual hobby.