Thursday, November 05, 2009

Photographers Rights

photographers-rights-privacy I got up this morning and went to quickly take a look at some of my favourite photographers blogs – just to name a few, I really like Matt Nicolosi, Jasmine Star, and Michael Andrew.  These three in particular generally have an interesting experience, some valuable photography input, or some great sarcasm style humour to share.  Today  was a bit of a bonus as Michael Andrew had all three – in his blog – which I still see as more valuable than twitter for several reasons :) (referring to a recent post by DJ).  Apparently Michael got A TICKET, an actual $ fine – For Taking A Picture.  I have no doubt this ticket would be thrown out if Michael were to put time and energy into going to court etc. – but REALLY – and I know this sounds really Canadian minded – but what’s the use.  It’s a $70 fine, an he would probably waist more time and energy fighting it than the value of the fine – PLUS – hey, read the blog – its a funny story – good guys, bad guys, an escapee…the ticket price is almost worth the entertainment value.   Don’t get me wrong, this entire incident should not have happened, I’ve been in a situation like this only twice before – the first was with a contractor building a house in our area.  I was taking pictures of some ones house during the building stages (as requested by the owner), the contractor came after me yelling I wasn’t allowed to do these pictures and demanded I erase them – did he have the right to do this – NO, but he was afraid of there being incriminating evidence showing what he was doing wrong – the second incident was the same idea – just afraid of having evidence showing wrong doing.  By the way, I never erased any pictures…I was well within my rights in what I was doing.  Canada has a few different specs on our photographers rights laws – especially in Quebec there have been some interesting cases, however it’s all pretty similar to the US legalities.  I can’t promise that knowing your rights will necessarily get you anywhere at the time of an incident, however, it will give you peace of mind that you are within your rights.

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