On 8/11/05, William Robb, discombobulated, unleashed: >Creeping horseshit. >There is, to the best of my knowledge, no law requiring permission from >anyone regarding photography in public places. >Our school system is publicly funded, and as such, are public places.
Consider the school's viewpoint. A car in the car park with a man in taking pictures. If I was a teacher I would be more than interested in the motives of the photographer, and would at least have approached to inquire. Calling the police is a bit much, but I've seen it here as well. You could call shopping malls public spaces, but you try snapping a few pics of the fountain in the mall in downtown metropolitan Regina, and I'll bet you fifty bucks a man with a pointy hat intercepts you within a couple of minutes. It's a sad state of affairs, but it's reality. The reality is also that there are ways around these things, either by acquiring permissions beforehand, or continuing by stealth, to name just 2 ;-) A couple of years ago, the head teacher at my son's elementary school casually announced that no filming or photography would be possible at the annual end-of-year musical production because 'we're not insured' (whatever that means). Disgruntled parents and grandparents armed with P+S cameras and video recorders sat chastened. I ignored the statements and carried on shooting regardless. I would have been quite happy for the head teacher to accost me (she never did) and create a scene. I would have been even happier for her to call the police, so that her sham could be exposed. I happen to know that the local education policy is to allow individual schools to decide on parent's snapping at such concerts. I would willingly have challenged in such an open forum - and I suspect that is exactly why she did not! Subsequently, there was a barrage of complaints about the ban, and so the next year, parents received a paper to sign if they *did not* want their child photographed or videotaped at the annual concert. One signed paper back meant that nobody could snap or shoot. Oddly enough, not one parent signed, and the head teacher shamelessly announced that permission for photography had been granted. I'm a bit jaded anyway because I spend my days filming when told not to, and I know what I can get away with and what I can't - what I want to get away with and what I don't, and that knowledge is very powerful when out in the real world. I've been stopped by the police many times over the years, and not once has it gone past a friendly chat asking me what I'm up to. But then again, I work for a national TV company and carry a press card, and we do a lot of filming with the various police forces and I know a lot of them by sight. I dare say if I was a single photographer with no backup, I would tread very carefully indeed. Even Robert Frank had his share of problems - locked up and interrogated for hours on end after being stopped by police in Arkansas in 1955. It can happen to the best ;-) Cheers, Cotty ___/\__ || (O) | People, Places, Pastiche ||=====| http://www.cottysnaps.com _____________________________
