Photography in Public Places: A Primer

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From: Popular Mechanics

We fight these battles every day. We want to get the images – and often someone doesn’t want those images acquired.

It is normally someone in a uniform of a security or police service telling us to stop shooting. Depending on the necessity, we often have to shift between knocking out a few quick shots – and casually abiding* by their unreasonable restrictions OR truly fighting for our constitutional rights. With deadlines as they are, I normally don’t have time to truly push the issue – just to get exteriors of a building or shots of a business. But when it comes to the recent issues with BP restricting access, important information – that affects everybody – was being illegally blocked.

Popular Mechanics recently put together a simple explanation of our rights to public photography.

“Legally, it’s pretty much always okay to take photos in a public place as long as you’re not physically interfering with traffic or police operations. As Bert Krages, an attorney who specializes in photography-related legal problems and wrote Legal Handbook for Photographers, says, “The general rule is that if something is in a public place, you’re entitled to photograph it.” What’s more, though national-security laws are often invoked when quashing photographers, Krages explains that “the Patriot Act does not restrict photography; neither does the Homeland Security Act.” But this doesn’t stop people from interfering with photographers, even in settings that don’t seem much like national-security zones.”

Read the full story here.

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[canuckcam]

Then there's guys like this trying to bait the cops while videotaping in public places. Encounters with dipsh*ts like this one make all those officers (and I'd bet platoon) lump all the media with him. Then it takes 10x the superhuman effort of all the media they encounter in the future to gain respect back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRwrhwOO93w


Same guy. I have to say I'm on the side of the cops. He went looking for trouble and he got it. Especially at a traffic stop - they're nervous enough already dealing with the unknown occupants and/or items in the vehicle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jftEaxFJNWg

[Michaelrosenblum]

Excellent and very important piece Kevin. Thanks very much.

[A Step Above Productions]

Yesterday I was worried I would encounter a problem with some police officers. I was hired by a Canadian news network to shoot video of Conrad Black returning home (he is a Canadian businessman returning home from prison). His home is on the exclusive Island of Palm Beach… lots of wealthy powerful people there. I told the network we may have problems with the location. The cops were great to us… all 20. We parked in an empty lot and sat outside the house for nearly 10 hours waiting for Conrad. This is where it goes to show that we can respect one and other, police and journalist. They could have easily made us move as we were standing on the side of the road. But it is dip$hits like Kevin showed us that give us all a bad name.