I walked the width of Manhattan last week, heading to the Aperture Gallery in Chelsea. My route took me past Madison Square Park, where crowds snake awaiting their turn at the Shake Shack, and admire the Flat Iron Building. The area is a thicket of photographers – many tourists want pictures of both the building and hamburger-hungry crowd, and, judging from the high end cameras and tripods wielded by the black-clad emaciated young, so do many photography students
I walk through here many times a week, since this is also where I pick up a subway line that I frequent, so I’m sure I am in the background of many, many photographs. And perhaps, when I’m sitting on a bench in the park having an iced tea, or I pause to jot down a note when I’m waiting for the light to change, or just looking up at the Metropolitan Life Tower, which I’ve always loved, I’ve been in the foreground of those photos – the unknowing, unasked subject.
This doesn’t distress me, in fact, I rather like the idea. But I know that many people in New York City, and around the world, object to having their photo taken without permission.
When I’ve reached for my camera on the road, I’ve been admonished with a finger shake in Marrakech, yelled at in the market in Puebla, Mexico, and even had stones thrown at my car by a group of children in Rajasthan, India. While I have photographed people when I’m traveling, I often do it with the use of my zoom lens. Or I ask permission – which has yielded a few nice photos of smiling faces, although a posed photo is necessarily different than a candid shot.
Courtesy and Copyright Aperture/The Paul Strand Archive.
The reason for my trip to the gallery was to take in a new show of photographs made by Paul Strand during two trips to Mexico: one in the 1930s; one in the 1960s. His subjects were the landscape, the architecture, religious iconography – but also the people. As I made my way around the gallery, I found myself wondering how he was able to take these photos – of people manifestly unaware that they were being photographed. The photos were of such a quality, and so carefully composed, that they obviously took time to set up – so just how did he do that without alerting his subjects to his presence?
I’d just been reading about a different photographer, Ruth Orkin, who made the iconic shot, An American Girl in Italy, 1951. A young woman rounds a street corner in Florence, Italy. Her shawl has fallen off her shoulder, and she’s securing the other side with one hand, carrying a sketchpad and a satchel with the other. There are fifteen men of all ages on the street with her – two are on the street on a motorcycle, some leaning against a building, at a café. They’ve turned to watch her as she passes, and one of them is bent slightly forward at the waist pursing his lips – perhaps he’s wolf whistling, or creating that slurpy smoochy sound.
The photo was staged, I’d learned – or rather, it was re-created. Orkin and her model, Jinx Allen, an art student, had set out to photograph the experience of being an American girl traveling in Italy – it would be originally published in Cosmopolitan magazine, entitled “Don’t Be Afraid to Travel Alone”. Allen had walked down the street and elicited the response pictured, apparently. So Orkin asked her to turn around and walk the street again.
I wondered whether Strand had done something similar. But a handy piece of wall text on his working methods informed me otherwise.
“To photograph the Mexican locals in the streets and marketplaces without their being aware of the camera, Strand fitted the Graflex with a lens extension containing a prism, enabling him to compose images at angles than differed from his apparent direction, a variation of a hidden-camera technique he had first used in the streets of New York in the 1910s.”
Courtesy and Copyright Aperture/The Paul Strand Archive.
I’ve been reading up on street photography, which is what this genre is called. A photographer’s anonymity is prized; techniques of misdirection are common.
But what of the subjects? Do they have the right not to be photographed?
Good question. Even though my husband and I take a lot of street and people photographs, I still believe that if a person doesn’t want his/her photo taken then that wish should be respected. I personally don’t mind being in photos, but I know there are others who do. Dan and I have a bit of an advantage with people photos since we often work as a team. So, if we ask permission to take a photo and the person agrees but puts on a goofy grin, the other person (without the camera) can start talking with him/her for a more natural position.
If people ask not to be photographed, I respect those wishes. But then…
I was on Ometepe Island in Nicaragua with a camera and telephoto lens when a beautiful woman rounded the corner with a load (or two) of laundry in a basket carefully balanced on her head. She was graceful, tall, and exceedingly picturesque. I raised my camera and centered her in the viewfinder, at which point she turned and headed toward me. Embarrassed, I lowered my camera without taking a picture. She stood in front of me, hands on her hips, and said in Spanish, “You must think I am very beautiful to be taking a picture of me.”
I was very disappointed at not clicking that shutter.
james
If people ask not to have their photograph taken then I’ll respect their wishes. But for candid shots, I’ll usually take the photo first. I’d rather forgiveness rather than permission. I think it’s fair game to take photos of people in a public place – intruding into a private space is a different issue. I do take a lot of posed photos too but will often keep shooting to try to get something more natural. Also, I find that when you show people the photo, they tend to relax and then you can take some more.
Thanks for sharing your experiences Audrey, James, Caitlin!
It’s a sticky situation, especially when the subject asks for money to be photographed…which is something I didn’t raise in this piece, but that’s also on my mind.
I shoot quite a lot at events, mostly horse shows and the like, and recently had my first emailed complaint from someone who was upset that I’d captured a picture of her (at a Renaissance-faire type of event) and that it was available to buy prints on my website. I usually have been welcomed at events as it’s a service I’m providing… people get a chance to get professional photographs of themselves riding or doing whatever, and I get a chance at a little print sale income to pay for my time. (I rarely ever make actual sales, unfortunately, people just steal the proofs and put them on facebook.) IMO, getting upset about being photographed when you’re in costume at a public event is a bit like being angry at the local newspaper for capturing a picture of you marching in a parade. You are, by definition, making yourself available to the public, and the point is for them to look at you… thus the costume.
Any ideas about the legalities of this, though? Do I need to have a model release for shooting a picture of someone in public if I were to, say, hang the photo in a gallery or sell it to a newspaper for editorial? Or just selling prints online? My favorite sort of photography is just what you’re talking about here… capturing candid shots of people who don’t know they’re being observed… once they know you’re photographing, your whole composition usually vanishes as people become self-conscious. Not to mention that if you’re taking photographs while traveling, you might not even speak the language enough to ask for permission (or for the subject to understand what they’re signing if you did get a model release). I’d hate to think I’d get sued for taking an awesome picture; surely photojournalists and artists aren’t all out there getting signed releases for every photo they take?
I’ve noticed that what’s happened in the past several years where everyone has a camera, a camera phone, etc… in general people are less aware of cameras clicking all around them. I first noticed it when shooting pics of children; they used to have this radar for a camera being present and immediately put on their best cheesy posed smiles. These days in busy public places there are always people w/arms extended taking pictures of this and that, all of it becoming just part of the cacophony of background noise. I have found it to be kind of a juicy opportunity, and have had some fun “shooting from the hip.” The majority of these shots never make it off my computer screen – they are really for my own inspiration and memory, but I have occasionally used one or two on my website and struggled with the moral ambiguity of it.