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In this country you could be sued for an invasion of privacy and if it was published you could be asked to pay a fee. There is also a problem: suppose the person was “wanted”, or his wife was wondering were he was… There could be many repercussions. And here, the taking of photos on public transport is illegal. Most places where the public are allowed do forbid photography of any sort without permission. Even street photography, photos taken where people can be identified is illegal. The general rule: “no portraits without permission”. For most purposes, verbal permission is all that is required.
These rules also apply to journalists, but they do seem to ignore them in the main. And of course lots of street photography takes place. I try to make sure that any people in the frame are turned away or are far away. If I want a figure…, well, I ask permission or I import one from Poser (a recent acquisition).
Chris. -----Original Message-----
Dave,
when travelling I sometimes get in such situations - and am still puzzled. Often it is impossible to ask for permission - for example when you "shoot" from a bus or boat, or simply due to language problems. In many cases, I did not take the photo, in others, there was a sort of permission through gestures or just the _expression_ of the face. I'm pretty sure that even here in Europe many people would be quite worried when confronted with a "model release form" - how to explain this to someone in a remote Indian village?
Also, I don't believe in paying for portraits - either everything is staged for tourists and in no way genuine, or there's a good chance to interfere with the local culture: if many tourists pay only a few cents for the portrait of a child in a developing country, he/she will probably "earn" more than the father on the fields... I do take photos of the people I personally get to know - but would be very reluctant to ever publish them. The outcome is that I have hardly any portraits on my website.
I very much like the portrait of the man on the bus - he doesn't seem to object to getting photographed either... Am I too cautious? How do others here deal with such situations?
Laurenz
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