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Photographers Face Ejection Over Lenses
destinyland writes "Zooomr CEO Thomas Hawk was ejected from a San Francisco art museum because the security guard apparently thought his expensive camera could be used to spy on female employees. Another photographer notes that 'many people consider a professional-looking camera a threat,' and the state of California has even passed a law against telephoto lenses being used to intrude on celebrities' private lives. Hawk is routinely confronting security guards who argue that photographing their buildings represents a 'security threat.' Ironically, four weeks ago while attending Microsoft's Pro Photo Summit, he was told he couldn't even photograph the lobby of a Hyatt Hotel."
(The following text applies, I believe, in the USA, Australia, the UK and maybe other places, check with your local lawyer, I'm not one.)
Unfortunately, inside privately owned buildings they (being the owners, managers or agents) can prevent you from taking photos (or, ask you to leave). (If they ask you to delete your photos, you tell them to fuck off, or just pretend to. But if it looks like someone is going to beat the shit out of you... maybe safer just to delete the photos.)
However, outside, on public property, they can't do shit, and you tell them that.
Most of the time, you just need a smaller camera. It won't take as nice photos (perhaps), but it is much less obvious, and beats not being able to take photos at all.
By the way, the often used "security threat" or "terrorism" bullshit, is just bullshit. If a terrorist wants to take a photo, they don't need a big obvious camera, they just use a small one. More to the point though, tourists (terrorists?) take photos of public buildings everyday, unless you are willing to fuck with your tourist revenue...
For comments around public photography and laws around photography in the UK:
http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php
http://www.chapterthirteen.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=64&Itemid=56
For the USA:
http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm
http://www.photosecrets.com/law.html
Lots of links for different countries:
http://www.photolawnews.com/
There are also guides for Australia I believe, and other countries.
I wank in the shower.
I need to stuff a copy of The Photographer's Right in my camera bag in case something like this ever happens...
The Register has two recent articles about similar stories and general photography paranoia in the UK.
The war on photographers - you're all al Qaeda suspects now
UK clamps down on bus-spotting terror menace
Shopping malls aren't public places. They can absolutely kick you out for any reason they feel necessary. They can't demand that you hand over your film or prevent you from publishing the pictures that you've taken, but they can demand that you not take pictures or kick you out.
Sorry, you are dead wrong here. Review this summary of photographer's rights.
The law is clear, in a public place, you are free to photograph anything you want, even other people without their permission. While most police officers are aware of that law, security guards usually are not, and so it is likely that they will give you a hard time about photographing the public facade of a building. Also keep in mind that the law is not clear on photographs where the subject of the picture is on private property but the photographer was standing on public ground.
Palm trees and 8
From the first paragraph of the document you quoted, in bold,
there are no laws prohibiting the taking of photographs on public or private property. If you can be there, you can take pictures there: streets, malls, parking lots, office buildings. You do not need permission to do so, even on private property.
I don't know how much more obvious it could be
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That's not entirely accurate, at least not in the US. The Supreme Court has ruled that shopping malls fulfill the traditional "public square" function, and you are free to conduct political activities on their property, as long as you don't block entrance or exit and don't pollute the area with excessive noise or trash. That's why you can set up a table outside of a grocery store to get people to sign a petition, and when the manager tells you to leave you can tell him to call the cops and have you arrested. Which he won't do, because the police won't arrest you.
I know, I've done this many many times in my younger, more active days, when I tried to get pro-marijuana laws put on the ballot in California.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
If that was true, then you couldn't set up any meaningful kind of CCTV security system.
That is NOT true at all, see Arrington v New York Times Co., 434 N.E.2d 1319 (N.Y. 1982). There isn't an expectation of privacy in public. Shopping malls and other private areas can have restrictions, but they can't restrict taking pictures of the building from a public area. You only need permission and a model release if the photograph is going to be used commercially, which excludes news and "fine art" usage. That means that you can even photograph children in public and sell the picture to a newspaper without anyones permission. If a cop stops you, they can't require that you either show them your pictures, or to delete pictures. Don't trust me, ask a lawyer.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
My understanding, albeit a little hazy, is that building plans must be filed with local governmental offices, and that they are available for anyone to peruse. Of course, the building plans may or may not accurately match what was actually built, and it may be difficult to chase through all filed modifications and updates, but they should be available.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Actually, if you RTFA, the museum had explicitly made a big deal about how they were opening up more to photographers. Both the museum's website and a senior museum employee had confirmed such with the photographer. But one power-mad guy in charge of visitor relations, or somesuch, got on his high horse and shut the photographer down.
Keep in mind, this was photography in the open atrium of the museum lobby... not pictures of individual pieces in the museum's collection.
This sig intentionally left justified.
I worked as a security guard all through my undergrad years (worked dorm security for the university I went to). For the most part it was a great job (quiet and great for study time), but the downside was that you were a total fall guy for your boss's stupidity. They would come up with some inane policy (or just tell you in private "Don't let people do such-and-such") and you were expected to enforce it, or get fired. But you could also get fired if you did enforce it and someone complained about the stupid policy. Most of the security guards I worked with had been "fired" at least once (and, almost always, promptly rehired 2 months later). The worst part was that we got blamed by the public for enforcing the stupid policies (as if we came up with them). I had people yell at me, get in my face, even had a few guys take a swing at me (watch out for the little guys, especially when they're drunk).
So before people blast the guards, they should realize that guards often get conflicting messages and stupid directives from the top. They're just trying to keep their jobs.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
So, first of all, Thomas Hawk is clearly an idiot. He spends a lot of time bragging (on-line) about breaking the law. Why has he not been arrested -- or at least fined -- yet? I mean, yes, fine, break what laws you find necessary. But honestly... bragging about it on the internet?
Ok, enough of that. The point here is that Mr. Hawk appears to be making a career out of being an obnoxious, loudmouthed nuisance who refuses to follow lawful directions on private property. Once he's pissed people off enough that they throw him out, he makes himself look good by posting the story online, where crowds of idiots show up to agree with him that he's super-cool for standing up to the man. Ego gratification at its finest.
I bet that, in the case of the museum, if he had responded calmly and quietly, and agreed not to take pictures in that location, they would have let him stay, and take all the other pictures he had wanted. Of course, in some of the other cases he was completely within his rights, but from the sounds of it he didn't handle those any better. Probably because if he did, he wouldn't get to puff himself up online, where his crowds of adoring fans could tell him what a stud he is.
Carry a copy of the "Photographer's Rights" pamphlet, speak quietly and politely to security guards, and don't waste your time arguing with people who don't have the authority to let you do what you want. It wastes your time, and annoys the guards.
Um, no, it's not. That's just one of those things that everyone THINKS is illegal, including cops etc. Airports, at least the big ones, are public property, and as such it is explicitly NOT illegal to take photographs in them, because even if a law saying otherwise was passed tomorrow, it would absolutely fail on the basis of unconstitutionality.
What IS illegal is taking photographs of essentially anything in order to commit a crime of any sort. In fact, there are very few things that one can do to plan a crime that isn't illegal because we have laws against conspiring to commit a crime. If the security guard legitimately believes you are planning a crime, he is welcome to file a police report so that it can be properly investigated. After the 8th or 9th time the cops have to deal with nothing reports, they'll probably just tell him to chill.
Remember, if you actually aren't breaking any laws, it is your civic duty to require all government agents to comply with the laws they are supposed to uphold. If cops are stopping every car on a stretch of road and requesting to search cars, make them get a signed warrant from a sitting judge before they get so much as a glance at the glove compartment. The authorities violate our rights for just two reasons, the first is that they think they can, and the second is that the people giving the orders don't realize how much work it would be if they actually had to do their jobs. Make every cop get a warrant for every search, and I guarantee you'll see a lot less searches (which is the whole point, in case anybody missed it).
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.