Friday, October 1, 2010

A dead horse?

If you're not already sick of discussing photographers' rights to shoot in public, the topic recently cropped up again on Boing Boing, spurred by an incident with fellow Eugene photographer Ryan Powers. Boing Boing has a wide readership, not just photographers, so the comments offer a pretty diverse and interesting range of opinions. Personally, I expect to see U.S. photography law become more restrictive within the next 10 years.

6 comments:

Droid said...

I think that anyone who shoots people in the street will eventually be subjected to the same harassment - unless they are female. I would've gone ballistic if they accused me of upskirt shots. It's almost like you have to use a cell phone these days in order to be beyond suspicion...which would be a far better 'upskirt' camera.

Anonymous said...

"I expect to see U.S. photography law become more restricted within the next 10 years."
Could be, which would be sad. But on the other hand I wonder how to enforce very restrictive laws, especially considering that you now have 10MP and more phonecams and that anything on a lousy framing can be cropped and enlarged convincingly (at least for descriptive purpose).

Ryan said...

@Droid
I pretty nearly did go ballistic, I was stunned at first, but wanted to continue taking pictures of the Busker's around the saturday market, so I bit my tongue.

Blake Andrews said...

JoPhilippe, that's the irony of the situation. Not only does everyone have a camera now on phones but surveillance cameras are everywhere. We're being photographed now more than ever before, but most of the attention is paid to old-school street shooters. It doesn't make sense but that's how it is.

K. Praslowicz said...

A typical human crotch is what, 2.5 feet off the ground? A Yashica-A has a close focus of ... 5 feet(?) by the image I found on line.

Now, would nailing an officer with a flurry of numbers & geometry to show how it is nearly impossible to do an upskirt with the camera make the situation better or worse?

Blake Andrews said...

Out of focus, blurry shots are often the most provocative. That's why most upskirters use view cameras.