Candid photography and the law

[serissolutions]

Can I photograph anyone on the street without asking for permission?

What is the proper protocol?

[welshphreak]

If I am not mistaken you can freely photograph people in public as long as you do not intrude on their personal privacy. If you were going to commercially use an image of somebody in the street for profit I think you would need to have them sign a model release form. Not entirely sure but im sure somebody else can go into more detail.

[Phil V]

The answer to this question may be slightly different in every country in the world. Where abouts are you thinking of:?:

[serissolutions]

I am in the USA

[jgbeam]

Can you run real fast? :p :lol:

Jim

[ctgoldwing]

Can I photograph anyone on the street without asking for permission?

What is the proper protocol?
It's my understanding that it comes down to 'expectation of privacy'. That is someone sitting in a restaurant by a window has no expectation of privacy. Someone in a bathroom does.
That being said, without a release (unless it is a news story) you will not be able to commercially exploit it.

Then comes reality. Sure you have a right to photograph someone on the street without their permission - even if they object. However 'right' you are, that punch in the nose is still going to hurt.

[andygrif]

I think it's France where you are not allowed to take ANYONE'S photo without their permission.

[Geeeyejo]

Maybe repercussions from the Lady Diana accident ?

[robertwgross]

I live in a condominium complex, and the fences around the outside of the complex are the property of the complex organization. About the same time every afternoon, some teenager hits the fence and jumps over it. Since massive portions of the fence had had to be repaired recently, this caught my attention. I decided that I would document this problem for the organization to take some action.

One day, I was waiting at the right place with my camera. The teenager showed up and jumped the fence, and I got a clean series of before, during, and after shots. During the after shot, the teenager looked up and saw me. Apparently, he told his parents.

About 45 minutes later, somebody was banging on my front door. It was the dad of the teenager. He started by asking me my name. I explained that I was the owner, and that was all he needed to know. Then he asked me if I had taken photographs of his teenager. I agreed that maybe I was. Maybe not. What was the problem?

He said that I needed a parental release in order to use those photographs for anything.

In a word, Bull****!

First of all, the teenager had no expectation of privacy, jumping over the fence that did not belong to him. Second, I would be turning over the photos to the organization for their action. Third, I was not using the photos for commercial purposes anyway.

Then I asked him if he would like to hang around while I called the cops. Somehow, he was gone a minute later.

The complex organization president thought they were good shots. No blur. Good lighting. We haven't seen anything of the teenager lately.

---Bob Gross---

[RJSorensen]

I guess that will solve that problem . . . We were told that anything in the public right of way is fair game.

[Citizensmith]

The expectation of privacy thing and limiting to personal/journalistic use are good general rules to know, but there are lots of exceptions and such. To the degree there are whole books written on the subject. If it really concerns you, or you are in a situation where it may be a significant issue, you may want to head over to your local book stire and pick one up.

[IndyJeff]

Keep this in mind, if you are in a public place and start firing off shots and someone notices you take a shot or two of them. They approach you and ask what your doing and you explain, "I am a photographer just playing around blah, blah, blah." If they then ask that you not take any pictures of them, cease and desist, offer to delete what you have already taken and apologize.

Everyone has a right to their own image and control of it. Besides, if they don't want you to take the shot, what the heck you gonna do with it? You can't sell it and I doubt that it is of a newsworthy use, so abide by their wishes. You will get along a lot better.