Mike Broadway – PhotoBlog

Threat Level Gray

I was very pleased when this security guard walked into my viewfinder – you don’t get much human subject matter in a Austin strip mall at 10:30 on a Sunday morning. I was focused on the lines and shadows on the tarmac and not sure of the interest until his feet entered at the top right of the frame; now here was something to work with.

I did not know it at the time but the man had walked across the parking lot just to stop me from photographing it. Apparently, after 9/11, taking photographs of and around public spaces like strip malls is considered a security risk. He was very courteous about it; I think we both found it a little embarrassing. I left smiling at the absurdity but disturbed by the implications; it is not the first time I have been asked not to photograph a store building but it is the first time I have been given such a disingenuous and dangerous reason. The guard was just doing his job – the mall owners are either taking advantage of our cultural neurosis or hysterically subject to it.

Google will produce a 40 foot to one inch satellite image of the same mall with less than 10 seconds effort; the Street View feature adds a drive by perspective from the nearby highway. With Google I can identify every ladder, stair well and alley around the building. With a cell phone camera I could photograph everything else without giving myself away. Stopping the obvious photographer with his clunky SLR reduces the information available to malicious minds not one pixel.

Denying people the right to take photographs in public spaces is unconstitutional and illegal, and it provides nothing but a false sense of security. It is dangerous – we think we have achieved something that we have not. We think we have bought security in exchange for a little freedom but we have been duped, and the freedom we lose is a thread pulling from the very fabric that we treasure. If this false logic is followed unchecked then we can photograph no one and nowhere but inside our homes with the blinds drawn.

I suspect that the mall owner’s real concerns are financial and that the security excuse is a conscious or unconscious smoke screen. The owners fear bad publicity from photographs of trash or empty stores on their property, they fear investigators gathering evidence for a law suit, they don’t know what they fear exactly but if there are no photographs then they can feel safe and in control.

As to the law, to quote Andrew Kantor* from USA Today, “If you can see it, you can shoot it.” An Unfortunate turn of phrase in the circumstances but, excluding military bases and using telephoto lenses to invade a person’s belief of privacy, you have a right to photograph pretty much whatever you want.

September 29, 2008 – Addendum: After I made this post I found out that Andrew Kantor had also gathered his research into a separate document, Legal Rights of Photographers, available as a PDF on the home page of his blog, Andrew Kantor’s Place. If you are a photographer you might want to print this out and keep a copy in your camera bag :-)

Other Resources:

• *Kantor, A. (2005, Dec 29). New digital camera? Know how, where you can use it. USA Today. Retrieved Sep 28, 2008, from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2005-12-29-camera-laws_x.htm
• Matthews, N. (2006, July). The War on Photographers. PopPhoto.com. Retrieved Sep 28, 2008, from http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/2668/the-war-on-photographers.html
• Press Release (2005, August 27). NPPA Releases Memo On Photographers’ Rights To Take Pictures In Public Places. National Press Photographers Association. Retrieved Sep 28, 2008, from http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2005/08/rights.html
• Wimmer, K. & Blevins, J. (2005, August 15). Rights of Journalists on Public Streets. Covington & Burling. Retrieved Sep 28, 2008, from http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2005/08/rights.pdf