PhotoMat
Well-known
Just curious ... I wonder how many of those individuals who choose to ignore private property rights would be the same folks to file suit against the property owner when they fall and seriously injure themselves?
Entering private property without the owners permission is trespassing, plain and simple. Now, to what extent the perpetrator should be punished, (if at all) is subject to debate.
Entering private property without the owners permission is trespassing, plain and simple. Now, to what extent the perpetrator should be punished, (if at all) is subject to debate.
dfoo
Well-known
Equating a derelict building which clearly no-one gives a crap about with someone's property, such as a house, is clearly the basis of a nonsensical argument.
jack palmer
Well-known
I really like these shots and this type of photography. When I was a kid growing up in Baltimore we use to play in the old abandoned warehouses on Baltimores waterfront. We got chased off but no one really cared.They were probaby more worried that we'd hurt ourselves. Bill's entitled to his opinion and it sounds like it comes with a lot of anger. It's obvious that nobody gives a s**t about these buildings. Bill seems he's just pissed because sombody "broke a law". Oh my! Society is falling apart because someone went in a run down abandoned building and took a picture and all without permission. Call the police, a crime has been commited!! What a joke.
I think that you definitely don't understand something here. What is similar in taking pictures and vandalism ? One group leaves the place as it was and the other destroys it. Take pictures, leave footsteps.
Olsen
Well-known
Could be. But. Trespassing is legal in most of Europe. Like here in Scandinavia. Well, you don't enter people's homes or gardens. But desolate factories, forests or fields; you are free to roam private property. This is based on very old laws going back to the Viking Age. They were no socialists, I can assure you.
bmattock
Veteran
The crime in either case is 'trespassing'. If you wish to dispute it with the courts, by all means do so.
In Michigan state law, there appears to be no distinction between trespass on private property and that of an abandoned property (750.552 Trespass upon lands or premises of another), but there may be county or city laws I'm not aware of. So yeah, in the absence of specific information to the contrary, I consider them the same thing, and so, it appears, does the law.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
They have only themselves to blame if they can't point out why urbexing should be legal. Beauty. Truth. 'Every class acts in its own class interest'. A handful of time-worn arguments like that.
Cheers,
R.
Ezzie
E. D. Russell Roberts
Littering is also a crime, even in Norway, or at least a misdemeanor. I hate littering, I think litterers should be shot, but that´s just me.
And don´t get me started on speeding, which actually kills more people (accidently, yeah right) than intentional murder, both in the States and elsewhere. I would hesitate a guess that most drivers, photographer types even, consider speed limits as advisory, not actually absolute and breaking them a criminal act.
And don´t get me started on speeding, which actually kills more people (accidently, yeah right) than intentional murder, both in the States and elsewhere. I would hesitate a guess that most drivers, photographer types even, consider speed limits as advisory, not actually absolute and breaking them a criminal act.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Better still, they'd rip your lungs out and watch you suffocate in agony -- remember the Blood Eagle? -- which sometimes seems quite close to what Bill is advocating. SHOOT THE TRESPASSERS!
Cheers,
R.
bmattock
Veteran
In the article I linked to in the beginning of this thread, some urbex types pushed a truck out of a fourth-story window. In other parts of the city, they routinely turn abandoned houses into crack houses, and / or burn them down. The city is a ruin of neglect and decay and yes, I have a bit of a problem with it when people break into closed factories and abandoned houses and 'urbex' in them, as it all adds up to the society we live in now.
It's no fun living on a street with abandoned houses on it. Let them be broken into and 'explored' by urbexers, turned into clandestine criminal meeting grounds and torched for fun and see how much you like it.
Ezzie
E. D. Russell Roberts
Well evidently the owners don´t care, otherwise they would have done more than put a sign on the fence some 50 years ago and leaving it at that. If the owner´s don´t care, why should anyone else?
bmattock
Veteran
If I don't lock my door, is it OK for you to come in and have a look around?
dfoo
Well-known
Screw what the law says. Are they the same thing? No. It fails the common sense test.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
dfoo
Well-known
You are confusing two things, which of course you realize since you are clearly not an idiot.
jack palmer
Well-known
I'm not for vandalisim. I spent years doing historic rehabs on buildings in Baltimore where you nailed stacks of plywood down at the end of the day so it wouldn't walk.They would start fires in 50 gal barrels at 6 am waiting for the drug houses to open. But I'm not for cutting a guys d**k off because he goes in an abandoned building to take photographs.I don't care if it's technically traspassing or not. Any judge in Baltimore hearing a case of someone taking photo's in an old building would be pissed at the cop for wasting his time.
Ezzie
E. D. Russell Roberts
Well yes, if it looked like it had been vacated for over 50 years and you long gone.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Jack,
Mostly, the police and the courts can follow your line of reasoning.
Bill sometimes can't.
Cheers,
R.
climbing_vine
Well-known
But if that's not what it means, I'm not sure what the point of saying it is at all.
Al Patterson
Ferroequinologist
So if I own a derelict building it isn't actually property? And if you seriously hurt yourself therein, you won't sue me?
Yeah, right. Nonsense argument, on your part.
TennesseJones
Well-known
Now then bmattock, I'm a little worried by you, you seem so certain about things. It's often the being absolutely certain that causes the trouble I think.
You say that you don't really like this type of photograph (some interesting examples thank you) but would it be different if you did? If you really really loved this genre, like you admire and respect the Veterans?
Would you break a law to achieve a wonderful work of art?
Would you break a law- even if no-one else might ever know about your law breaking, and even if no-one else was affected- in order to achieve a wonderful work of art?
If you've said no to both of these, might you break an ethical rule in order to achieve a wonderful work? Take a picture of someone who didn't want it done, use something about someone you knew when writing a character, play fast and loose with history in order to heighten the art of a scene in a play?
I know quite a lot of artists. They're often frighteningly exuberant when inspired, are doing stuff types (like these criminals with their sharp little cameras in empty buildings) but they rarely feel certain of the ethics of making certain work.
But the lure of the work itself is so strong- no?- that great pit of the stomach looking forward feeling: the sense of the neccesity of the image you have seen that is yet to be imprinted on the film even before the shutter has kissed shut, when the viewfinder is still on its way to your eye?
anyway toodle pip, it's tricky, but I'm with the criminals.
You say that you don't really like this type of photograph (some interesting examples thank you) but would it be different if you did? If you really really loved this genre, like you admire and respect the Veterans?
Would you break a law to achieve a wonderful work of art?
Would you break a law- even if no-one else might ever know about your law breaking, and even if no-one else was affected- in order to achieve a wonderful work of art?
If you've said no to both of these, might you break an ethical rule in order to achieve a wonderful work? Take a picture of someone who didn't want it done, use something about someone you knew when writing a character, play fast and loose with history in order to heighten the art of a scene in a play?
I know quite a lot of artists. They're often frighteningly exuberant when inspired, are doing stuff types (like these criminals with their sharp little cameras in empty buildings) but they rarely feel certain of the ethics of making certain work.
But the lure of the work itself is so strong- no?- that great pit of the stomach looking forward feeling: the sense of the neccesity of the image you have seen that is yet to be imprinted on the film even before the shutter has kissed shut, when the viewfinder is still on its way to your eye?
anyway toodle pip, it's tricky, but I'm with the criminals.