Well this post, and the photo on Flickr, has certainly received much more attention that I expected. The comments run the gamut, from “Good job!” to “I will kill you if you take my photo!”.
It is still my personal opinion that this person overreacted to the situation. If he would have ignored me, there wouldn’t have even been any photos to speak of. If he would not have pushed me and grabbed my camera, there would not have been anything remarkable to post about. If he would have simply been decent towards me, I would have respected his wishes. That post was not about if it is right or wrong to yell at homeless people. It was a report about an experience that happened to me personally and why I did not allow somebody to use threats and physical force to prevent me from taking a photo.
Everybody is, of course, entitled to their own opinion, and I appreciate that people took the time to comment and express their feelings. I was hoping that the post would make people think about what they would do in a similar situation, and I believe that this was successful. I have enjoyed reading other accounts of people being confronted for taking photos because it made me think about how I would handle these kinds of situations. It is not uncommon for people to ask me what I am doing when I am out there shooting; sometimes they are very suspicious, and sometimes their body language is initially threatening. However, it is quite rare that a situation escalates to the point of somebody attempting to physically take my camera or pushes me around.
If you are out in public taking photos, you will eventually be confronted by somebody that does not like the fact that you are taking photos around them — hopefully you will be able to handle the situation in a way that promotes an understanding of what you are really doing. If you are the person on the other side of the lens, and a stranger seems to be taking a photo of you in public, hopefully you will be able to engage them in a civilized conversation rather than threaten and assault them.
Personally, I will continue to shoot. I know that eventually somebody will not like what I am doing, and I hope that I will be able to have a reasonable conversation with them. I hope that every time somebody asks me what I am doing, I get a little better at fostering an appreciation for why I am out taking photos, and become a little better at avoiding conflict. It is much more rewarding to talk to somebody than to have them yell at you and push you around.
thank you for posting this and your original post/photo. you bring up a valid concern for those of us who like to take lots of public photos. people need to know their rights. especially photographers. no one has the right to take your camera or to prevent you from posting something on the internet. photographers should not feel threatened legally in any way.
I’m sure he could sue you for the way in which you posted about the incident on the blog.
What he did was wrong, obviously. But this is still a photograph of a person, and in any other circumstance you would ASK PERMISSION before photographing someone.
What difference does it make that he was abusing a homeless guy? (OBVIOUSLY wrong, but these are two seperate issues)
Look at Google Street View at the moment.
Andrew, your assertions are fundamentally incorrect. While one can sue for just about any reason in the United States, winning is an entirely different matter; there are at least a half-dozen different issues that the subject of the photograph would need to overcome in order to come even halfway close to a successful lawsuit. Leave the lawyering to the lawyers and stop trying to apply the Fantasyland Revised Statutes To Stuff You Just Made Up to the issue.
Furthermore, you really should read some of Jeremy’s responses in the first post on the matter. He only said about a half dozen times that he was photographing the reaction only, not trying to arbitrate the man’s matter with the homeless guy.