On the street

I am regularly told by other photographers that shooting this or that is illegal and that they avoid street photography because they don’t want to get arrested. Sometimes it takes quite a lot of effort for me to convince them that their fears are unfounded, and it always makes me wonder where these ill-formed ideas come from and who spreads them.

Terror threats in the wake of 9/11 and the attacks in this country for a while did make life difficult for photographers, as suddenly taking pictures in public places was seen as a security risk by some police officers and lots of photographers were wrongfully stopped. Fortunately, that time has passed. It seems, though, the hang-over from those days of suspicion still has an influence on some photographers – though not, it seems, on the public. New vague rules on ‘data protection’ also complicated the picture for a while, while recent poorly thought-out moves by Twitter have also brought up questions about the rights and expectations of privacy of the public.

In truth though, despite all the noise, nothing has changed. We can still photograph almost anything we want to, and we still need to be careful about the context in which those images are used. This article intends to examine the state of street photography