Australia/New Zealand Photography in Public Places

wotalegend

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Those of you who subscribe to the PICA newsletter may have seen the item in this week's message relating to a proposal apparently before a Federal Parliamentary committee to ban photography in public places!!!
:mad: Have a look at this web page:

http://www.photoimaging.com.au/linkframe.taf?_function=NewsArticle&record_ID=40803

which contains a link to a petition to be signed.

If true, this is an alarming state of affairs, and all serious photographers in Australia should consider signing the petition. That's my opinion anyway.
 
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Thanks for that. I'll probably show up, just for interest's sake and because they seem to have the right people involved.

...Mike
 
I believe I would move from there if I could. They already took your guns, now they wan't to take away your right to take pics. in public places. Might as well be taking your cameras.:mad: BTW what was that guys name in Australia the police killed because they came for his guns and he wouldn't give them up?
 
gb hill said:
I believe I would move from there if I could. They already took your guns
Um, contrary to apparently popular belief, no they didn't. Certain types of firearm were banned (semi-auto and pump-action long-arms) but others remain quite legal when correctly licensed. There may be some major stupidities in our laws (which were quite obviously drawn-up by people without firearms knowledge) but there's no overall ban.
gb hill said:
now they wan't to take away your right to take pics. in public places.
They haven't done that (yet) although there's never a shortage of people who want to ban things, in my country or yours.

gb hill said:
BTW what was that guys name in Australia the police killed because they came for his guns and he wouldn't give them up?
I don't recall the incident, though I don't doubt it could happen. It happened to David Koresh - and he was in Texas, of all places! :confused:

Sure, Oz has its problems, but where doesn't?

...Mike
 
Shooting in public has become difficult even without new laws. People more and more hate to be photographed. I could write a lot about stories of upset people which felt offended by my shooting.

For instance, if there are kids in a public place and I don't know their parents, my camera stays in the pocket. Hip-Hop graffiti "artists" agressed me once, when I was shooting them (in a public place where graffities are allowed). They believed I'm a cop trying to identify their styles. A female tennis player on a public tennis ground, pretending to be a lawyer, wanted my SD card after I made wide angle shots of the court she was playing on (look here - it's the person in the background with the cap!). The manager of a public skating rink asked me to give him my camera until I leave the place (I was shooting my boys playing a hockey game). Some people mix up copyright and personality rights and believe they have the copyright of a picture if they're on it (and sometimes even want money). Flea market dealers yelled at me when they saw my camera - a M6 with 28 Skopar - (many of them sell stolen stuff but they pretend thieves would first photograph the stuff before they come).

And so on, it's an endless and somehow sad story.

In another newsgroup, a female, older professional photographer posted she would never have such problems. But this has a lot to do with her age and her gender, and of course her attitude, too.

Didier
 
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No, they didn't take my guns. I have never owned a firearm. I have no desire to own one, and if I think about it, I actually feel safer in a country where there are less firearms circulating in the community. Anyway, this forum and this thread are about a different type of shooting which I think most of us here believe has much less potential to harm people.
 
wotalegend said:
I have never owned a firearm.
I have, long ago, and sold it when I stopped doing rural work that required it.
wotalegend said:
Anyway, this forum and this thread are about a different type of shooting which I think most of us here believe has much less potential to harm people
I couldn't agree more. I just wanted to correct an apparently widely-circulated mis-conception.

...Mike
 
I didn't mean to upset so many of you. I was just going on a news report my wife read just the other week. The report stated how crime has increased since the Australian government put a ban on guns. My wife was doing a search on the web on information about the actor Paul Hogan (croc. dundee) when she came across this information. The guys name was maby Jack something. I can't remember right now, but the report stated he was quite popular in Australia. He carried a big knife? I'll have to see if she can find it & post it for you. I agree with you 100%. Here it's not much better and at least you don't have the border problems we do. As far as keeping the thread photography related; I agree also but I feel I was keeping my post on topic because the subject deals with your Government. As far as guns go. Personally I don't have any but I do believe in freedom. Especially the freedom to take pictures in public places. On that note: Good luck!


Greg
 
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I found an authoritative article about this recently at <http://www.4020.net/words/photorights.shtml >
Whilst it does cover the legalities it doesn't prevent an unpleasant confrontation from developing in certain situations. I think the photographing of children in public has become pretty much a no-go area unless the parents or guardians are first approached and approval give. This rather limits the "spontaneous" moment.
 
thank you leigh. very insightful article which i'm going to print out and leave in my camera bag for the next time i shoot in public.
 
There was a similar scare here for a while in the UK. Not so long ago I was told by word of mouth that the government was trying to ban all photography in public places and that I should sign an online petition to help stop them from doing so. I was concerned, so I did. A few weeks later I got this email:

Thank you for signing the petition on the Downing Street website calling for the Prime Minister to stop proposed restrictions on photography in public places.

This petition has already attracted over 60,000 signatures from people who obviously share your concern. Not surprisingly, the idea that the Government might be poised to restrict your ability to take photos has caused some puzzlement and even alarm.

We have therefore decided to respond to this petition before its closing date of August, in order to reassure people.

The Government appreciates that millions of people in this country enjoy photography. So we have checked carefully to see if any Government department was considering any proposal that might possibly lead to the sort of restrictions suggested by this petition. We have been assured this is not the case.

There may be cases where individual schools or other bodies believe it is necessary to have some restrictions on photography, for instance to protect children, but that would be a matter for local decisions.
I don't know how relevant this is to the situation in Australia, but maybe it will put some minds at rest.
 
Wont help your tourist industry, whitewashing us at our national game and asking us to leave our cam phones at home wont help.

Noel
 
oh well, Noel - you can pay us back later this year in the footie world cup (again...).

so when cameras are outlawed, only outlaws will have cameras... or something like that?!
 
Leigh,

Thanks for the link. There is also an interesting article written in the current issue of Photofile which looks at the law and photography in Australia in particular in public places. While is doesn't delve into the nuts and bolts of our legal rights it is worth reading. It's a summary of the Panic and Paranoia talk given at the ACP last month for those of you who couldn't make it. Unfortunately it is not available on the web.

Also worth reading is another article by Kathryn Giles of the Arts Law Centre, dealing with photography and privacy of individuals in which she stated; "In Australia, there is no right not to be photographed. There is also no tort of invasion of privacy to generally protect an individual from having their photograph taken."

Click here to see the full article.

Tash
 
Photo Ban on Private property

Photo Ban on Private property

Here in the USA I already encountered odd Photo bans.

The first was in April during a Spring blizzzard when I went out to do some street photography in down town Milwaukee. I saw a garbage can with an umbrella in it with snow on top and wanted to take a picture (the garbage can was on some steps outside a small skyscraper). As I was framing the shot, a security guard came running out of the building yelling that I must leave, that absolutely no photography is allowed on the premises. I told him that I just wanted to take a picture of the garbage can, and he said I was not allowed because I was on private property. I asked him if I could go two steps down on to the side walk to take the picture, and he said no, becasue the building would then be in the picture, (Ya, a whole 5 foot section of a pillar!) I asked him what the building was, and he said that it belonged to Northwestern Mutual Insurance company and that I need to leave at once (even though I was by this time off the step and on the public side walk).

The second incident happend at a new mall that opened up called Bayshore Town Center. The mall was renovated to look like an out door small town with more upscale sellers. It is outdoors and has some cool architecture. I went with my wife and child for a stroll and took my camera along. I took some picture and when I got to a fountain, there was a child playing in it. I took a picture of the fountain and the builing behind it with a wide angle lens. A security guard saw me, and then called another guard they talked and then one approached me and said that I have to put my camera away, that there is a zero tolerance policy for photography. I said to him: "Where does it say that policy? There are no signs." "Sir, that is the mall policy, you have to put your camera away at once." A little later on I met a friend of my wife who worked at the mall as an "ambassador" (security guard). I told her what happened, and she laughed: "So you are the guy they were talking about on the radio." I asked her about the policy, and she said it was true: zero tolerance for photogrpahy. It is so bad that you can not even take a picture of your own family on mall property. I asked why and she said that the mall was afraid of competitors taking pictures of merchandise and prices. I said: "That's crazy." And she agreed with me, but that was the reasoning they were given. A group of teens even got their camera's taken away from them because they didn't listen.

The moral of this long story. Photo bans are happening everywhere. It is truly sad! :eek:
 
/Signed.


Thanks very much for bringing this to our attention, the notion of such a proposal being accepted is one which my brain finds difficult to accept and I honestly struggle to comprehend why such a thing could be seen as beneficial to our society.

Is it due to the vaporous "threat" of terrorism? Photography has been with us for over a hundred years and there has never been a major terrorist attack on Australian soil.
Or could it be due to the invented "menace" of paedophilia infesting our society? Again I point out that Photography has been practiced by generations of Australians with no apparent effect (provable at any rate) on the amount of child abuse the country has endured.

Of course I don't need to preach to fellow photographers about how ridiculous such a ban would be, but it's tough not to be outraged by such a moronic propsal.

I will make one final point though - isn't it incredibly ironic that while photographing people in public is increasingly seen as taboo by some, the rate at which security cameras are being installed in public areas is increasing?
 
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