AlienShots, A Photographer’s Blog

As a photographer you should know your rights

Posted by iShoot - 06/05/08

Well, the right title should perhaps be ” As a citizen you should know your rights“. There has been increasingly unpleasant even hostile actions taken towards photographers all in the name of security and terror threats. Fine, nobody denies that we all what to live in a secure environment, but exaggeration by all means serves no purpose. Usually this type of harassment comes from some security officers that have no idea what’s so ever about what it means being on public property. They have been perhaps told “look for suspicious persons“, which they translated into “look for anybody with a camera” and the bigger your camera is, the more dangerous you look, thus the bigger threat you represent. What happened to the world in the last ten years?
In any case if you are on public property you have the right to take pictures. its as simple as that, or at least its supposed to be. If there are signs that say “No cameras” or similar , then by all means respect that.

Bert P. Krages wrote a nice manual called ” The Photographer’s Right” where he explains in detail what your rights are, and in our paranoid world today is an essential read. Different countries have different policies toward this increasingly annoying issue for photographers. Third world countries have a more relaxed approach concerning photography in public, except for military installations and sensitive objects naturally, so stay away from those when traveling. Recently the BBC published an interesting article about this paranoia subject called “Innocent photographer or terrorist?” read it here. Another similar event read the story, Scott Kelby also had some interesting close encounters

More interesting stuff : If You Put That Picture On The Internet I’ll Call My Lawyer,

Photography Law in Canada
Photography Law in the UK

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