Fashion Forum

Street Photography Under Threat
Submitted by mediadesk on Thu, 2007-11-29 14:19.Breaking News

MEDIA RELEASE
ARTS LAW CENTRE OF AUSTRALIA

Privacy changes will stop candid style street photography

Street photographers, filmmakers, writers and painters could be liable for invasion of privacy if planned changes to privacy laws currently under review by the Australian and New South Wales Law Reform Commissions go ahead.

According to the Arts Law Centre of Australia, this could lead to the extinction of the important genre of Australian street photography and create an increased layer of bureaucracy for all artists.

As an example, Arts Law says that street and crowd scenes filmed at the St Kilda Festival for the film Kenny would be prohibited under the proposed changes.

Executive Director of Arts Law Robyn Ayres said that in their efforts to support the introduction of a right to privacy, the Commissions were suggesting the introduction of a statutory cause of action for invasion of privacy. She said that Arts Law was particularly concerned at the recommendation that a person should be liable for the invasion of the privacy of another if he or she uses that persons name, likeness or voice without authority or consent.

There has been almost no discussion of the effect these changes would have on artists. We believe a persons privacy is important but further laws are unnecessary and will place inappropriate restrictions upon the making of art in public places.

There are existing laws that prevent artists from taking photographs, filming or making sound recordings in certain situations. There are also laws, such as defamation and passing off, that prevent the use of a persons image if it defames the person or is misleading. Further protection is not required and will be at a big cost to Australias artists and to our cultural life.

The introduction of a right of privacy of the type suggested by the commissions is a threat to freedom of expression. It will affect photographers, filmmakers, visual artists, writers and journalists. It also means that well lose art forms that document our society, says Ms Ayres. In the case of candid street photography, where the artistic success of the photograph may depend upon the subject being unaware the photograph is being taken, it is not possible to obtain the persons consent before taking the photograph.

In many other situations getting consent simply isnt practical. For example, the film Kenny includes scenes shot at the St Kilda Festival. To get written consent from all of the people who appear in those scenes would be an administrative nightmare.

We are really concerned that there has been a lack of representation by artists and arts organisations in the privacy reviews by both the NSW and Australian law reform commissions. As a result, the proposals put forward by the commissions fail to take into account the affects these changes will have on the arts. We encourage people to get in touch with the commissions to voice their concerns.

Full article

Are you serious? Seriously if you really don't feel safe going outside, then maybe staying indoors or seeking help about it might be worthwhile? I understand the whole paranoia and fear that's been injected into society nowadays thanks to the violence, papparazzi, etc that's being shown on TV but this is not the correct solution.

What happened to the freedom of speech and fundamental human rights? Art, in this case photography, is an expression of that freedom as experienced by the artist. Sometimes emotions can't be expressed in words, hence the purpose for art. Street photography is not a case of randomly snapping away hoping to find something good, but a recording of the moment. You see it all the time in newspapers and magazines.

Seriously, if the people who complained about an invasion of their privacy had approached the photographer nicely what they were doing and what the purpose of the photo was going to be for, I'm sure a proper and respectful dialogue could happen. Also if they think anyone would pay thousands of dollars of a photo of them opening their gob are a tad over the top. The most I'd pay is $10 :D

IF a law does indeed get passed, erm I'm hoping they'll have Internet access from prison ;)

Sounds a little like bureaucracy gone mad to me.

I wonder exactly what's driving this.

I think this is an issue where one rule cannot hope to properly cover all situations. A friend of mine had just finished a gig and was chatting with friends when someone held a camera above their group, took a photo of her mid-sentence and walked off. So, that's not so cool and the photog should have asked permission. On the other hand, many of the photos on this website would not have the express permission of each person in a photo, especially those sitting at the side of a fashion runway. I don't believe a rule could be made that would properly facilitate both situations. I totally wonder how this would affect the newspapers and television news stories, at a press conference would camera operators all have to get permission off rival camera operators before being able to show a story, or shots panning a street suddenly be disallowed? I do think that once this sort of thing affects the big media guns it will never see the light of day. These sort of stories surface all the time, I forget where was looking to ban cameras from all beaches, all very sound when thinking about old men in overcoats walking around with their monster zoom lenses but as soon as it was realised that it would affect Mums and Dads wanting to take pictures of their kids playing in the waves it didn't happen.

I do think artists are safe as long as their artistic endevours include methods shared by everyone else. I do agree with pirostitch that the pursuit of privacy is not worth sacraficing other things (except obvs dudes calling at dinner time to sell us stuff - do many people make decisions about their long-distance service provider at that time of the day).