Critical Tits and Photography
May. 9th, 2006 01:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
There's been a great debate over photography at the annual Critical Tits bike ride at Burning Man. For the uninitiated, hundreds if not thousands of women go topless, many get body painted, and then they ride across the playa in a huge solidarity parade. Naturally lots of men with cameras show up, despite the fact that BM has rules against taking recognizable pictures of people without their consent. Of course, not all the pictures are recognizable. My comments are on page 8, posted as errantember.
I need a photography icon...
I need a photography icon...
no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 07:01 am (UTC)It's truly a messy little world, and would be better if you could *truly* get outside of it. Better still, with a lever and a fulcrum.
Really?
Date: 2006-05-09 08:38 am (UTC)Re: Really?
Date: 2006-05-09 09:02 am (UTC)I think that as a photographer you're pretty clearly protected in the absence of some bar to capturing images in a non-public space. (Personally, I carry a copy of "the Photographer's Right" in my camera bag and refer to it when in doubt.)
We're going to play a game of "let's suppose" here using my body-painting example. Let's suppose that your employment situation were such that your employer could terminate you for "lascivious conduct" outside of work. You attend some festival, and paint some naked body and you sign them. Pictures are taken by another person, published on the web by a fourth. You are not in these pictures at all, yet I'll bet you could be terminated if your signature was recognizable.
Now, I'm not a lawyer, of course, but the above doesn't really refer to a court scenario at all, yet there are consequences. They might not stand up in court, but you'd have to sue your former employer to fix it and that is expensive and would pretty much destroy your chances of any future employment above retail level - law or no.
And if you want examples of criminal cases where this kind of thing would happen, I'd look into application of some of the more egregious drug enforcement legislation. Norml probably has some, for one thing.
Re: Really?
Date: 2006-05-09 09:14 am (UTC)Re: Really?
Date: 2006-05-09 09:21 am (UTC)Midori, though, used to have a great speech about a friends of hers who was charged with indecency for waring chaps ...
Re: Really?
Date: 2006-05-09 09:13 am (UTC)Re: Really?
Date: 2006-05-09 12:26 pm (UTC)Re: Really?
Date: 2006-05-09 12:32 pm (UTC)I don't know about the civil liability of the photographer in such cases. I would ask a lawyer if I wanted to know for sure, but it's probably expensive to find out.
Re: Really?
Date: 2006-05-09 05:09 pm (UTC)Re: Really?
Date: 2006-05-09 05:24 pm (UTC)Interesting topic
Date: 2006-05-10 10:06 am (UTC)My suggestion is not post anything to the net that you don't have a written release for -- the liability issue can really haunt you without it should it ever go to court.
Re: Interesting topic
Date: 2006-05-10 10:39 am (UTC)I'd actually like to take a model photography class so I could get more into the deliberate-setup instead of the spontaneous ambient-light style of photography, and obviously for that getting releases is fairly straightforward.