BALTIMORE, MD, September 22, 2011—Imagine that you are parent, standing with your child on a corner waiting to cross the street. You glance up and notice that someone a couple of feet from you is taking a picture and the lens is pointed straight at you. Questions start to run through your mind. Am I in the photo? Should I move? Is he taking a picture of me? Of my child? Why? If we are in the photo, where will it show up?  Will it show up as it is, or will the photographer Photoshop it before he publishes it?

In a world where cameras are on the back of everyone’s phone, the chance that someone, sometime will take a photo of you without your knowledge is fairly high. You don’t have to be celebrity or newsmaker to have your photo snapped and put up on the web for all to see.

This collision of photography and the web has brought about some interesting conflicts, but none sharper than the ability to take and post photographs without the subject’s knowledge.

Recently, a blog centered on taking pictures without people knowing caused a bit of a stir on Tumblr.

The blog, DC Metro people, has a straightforward premise; an anonymous person with an iPhone takes pictures of people on the DC metro system without their knowledge. Then he publishes the photos on a blog. It is a very simple, very real photography project.

And it is one that has gotten a lot of attention, both good and bad.

The good attention is because readers like the snapshots of people at their most unaware and in an environment that can, at best, be called gritty. The photographer’s skills and composition are an argument for a more experienced professional to dissect.

It is the bad press that has really sparked the debate. When contacted by people who find photos of themselves on the blog, the surreptitious snapper is often berated for a breach of privacy and demands that he take down the photos. Sometimes the blogger complies and sometime he doesn’t. And therein lays the catch;

The photographer doesn’t have to take the photos down. He (or she) is well within their rights to take your photo in public and post it, well…anywhere they want. [source]

It can be disconcerting and somewhat creepy to find your picture on a website, in a photo that you don’t remember posing for. It happens every day to almost everyone. You are in the background of tourist shot, your image is caught on closed circuit television (CCTV) at your favorite store, and more. What happens to that image is not up to you in any way.

Americans like to shout about right to privacy, but in reality, that right is very limited. In public places, all bets are off (except in very limited cases like dressing rooms). If a photographer wants to aim a camera at you or your child and you are on that street corner, they are not breaking any laws.

This issue has been brought into sharp relief against the backdrop of technology. We are all now carrying camera and video cameras in our pockets. Yes, smart phones have made capturing your every moment a real possibility. This has been true even for police officers.

Recently, some high profile police brutality cases emerged after bystanders caught officer’s misdeeds with their cell phone cameras. We all know that most cops are wonderful people. But when a camera captures a police officer beating a college student, the whole department suffers both emotionally and financially.

This very scenario recently happened in Baltimore. A cop was caught beating a suspect. While the incident was investigated, the legislature did a very strange thing. They made it illegal to photograph cops. Other states have followed. They state it is to allow these officials to do their job without fear of being recorded, but one wonders if isn’t to actually hide more incidents of abuse.

A court case testing the law offered the opinion that it was unconstitutional, but that opinion hasn’t stopped cops from trying to question, harass, or even arrest photo takers. Again, this is the direct result of the fact that most people are now carrying devices that can record and photograph at a high quality.

Often it seems it is up the photographer to educate the public about what he can and cannot take photos of, and this can lead to arguments and threat of legal actions. As a public, we like to know our rights, and we also need to know when we don’t have any of those so-called ‘rights’.

Taking a photo of someone may be considered creepy or rude, but imagine you are in 19th century France looking over the painting of Renoir’s Le Moulin de la Gallette. There you are dancing in the background. You never saw the painter, you did not want to be immortalized in oil, but nonetheless you are captured on canvas. One hundred and fifty years later, as millions looks at the painting, no one cares that you do not want to be there, they do not think of you at all.

You are a prop to the scene, a masterful touch conveying emotion to the art lover.  It is the same way with a photographer’s lens. Be proud that you are part of someone’s art…and smile for the camera. 

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